


Get your hands dirty

by MercuryMuse



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo (BTHB) [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Assassin Number Five | The Boy, Five is experimented on, Gen, Human Experimentation, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Like they watch him as if they're watching a TV show, Morally ambiguous Number Five, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Original Character Death(s), POV Outsider, The Commission watches Five in the apocalypse, This is an excuse to write Five killing people and going mad lol, Unethical Experimentation, Young Number Five | The Boy, but when isn't he?, no beta we die like ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27710290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryMuse/pseuds/MercuryMuse
Summary: Five Hargreeves' arrival and journey through the apocalypse becomes the highest-viewed channel at The Commission. He’s the talking point over lunch, there are discussions of him during work, and the betting poll on his life sits pride of place in the Headquarters entranceway. But with his expert survival skills and his sharp intelligence, The Handler is keen to turn him into the perfect killing machine for the organisation. Even if that means doing some rather experimental modifications. Let’s just say that Five isn’t particularly happy with this arrangement.-Bad Things Happen Bingo (BTHB): Made a Lab Rat
Relationships: Dolores/Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo (BTHB) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2192187
Comments: 31
Kudos: 109





	1. Is it time to lead or is it time to die?

**Author's Note:**

> The throwaway line in S1E5 that The Commission had been watching Five in the apocalypse got me thinking, so I decided to write something that loosely follows S1 from an outsider POV. This does include OC's, but the focus is on Five through their eyes. I don't come from a medical background, so everything in here has come from lots of research courtesy of Google, so I apologise for any inaccuracies! The title comes from the song [Dirty by Grandson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRaMatWRK50) which I highly recommend; it gives off a major Five feel.
> 
> Bad Things Happen Bingo (BTHB): Made a Lab Rat

The temperature was twenty degrees Celsius, or sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. The sky above him disturbed only with the occasional cloud. The slight breeze was enough to be pleasant, but not enough to be a hindrance. It was essentially the very definition of balance – but then again, The Commission was always at perfect equilibrium between past and present. Everything was completely and overwhelmingly neutral, the same as it had always been. And probably always would be.

Not that he minded. He rather liked the routine of the everyday.

“Good morning Dr Koller”

“Good morning” Franz greeted as he clipped his ID card back onto his laboratory coat.

He could make out a few of his colleagues ascending the steps to the main building, the bright white of their coats easily distinguishable amongst the sea of murky steel blue corporate wear of the timeline workers. There were even a couple of field agents in their dark suits, leaning up against the exterior wall with cigarettes in hand, briefcases down at their feet. 

“Hey, morning Franz” Thomas greeted, joining him as he made his journey towards the Human Anatomy and Physiology department. He had a thermos of steaming coffee clutched in his hand and Franz couldn’t help but feel slightly envious, wishing that he had taken the time to prepare a drink before he left his quarters. “Have you heard the news?”

“I haven’t” Franz remarked, keying in the code to the control panel. The mechanism beeped and the door unlocked.

“Dot flagged up an anomaly on the apocalypse timeline yesterday” Thomas hummed, shouldering the door shut behind him and cursing under his breath as he nearly dropped his coffee doing so. 

Dot. Franz wracked his brain. There were hundreds of timeline workers employed by The Commission that it was impossible to keep track of them all, but her name rang a bell. If he was remembering correctly she was the chirpy one with a penchant for cat-eye glasses, the one that always hung around with Herb.

“Apparently there’s a sole survivor” Thomas continued, “A boy”

Franz scoffed noisily and surveyed the lab. It was rather desolate given how close it was to the start of their shift. “A survivor in the apocalypse? I thought that everyone died; wasn’t that the whole purpose of the 2019 timeline?”

"Well..." Thomas began, eyebrows raised knowingly. He gripped his shoulders and steered him away from the workbenches; instead out towards the connecting kitchenette. He could hear the muffled noise of curious chatter, which explained the lack of his colleagues. “It gets even better. The boy is one of the Hargreeves family – the one that can jump through time. He literally appeared out of thin air yesterday; everyone is talking about him”

Franz had never been one to dabble in the subjects of the timelines; he was merely one of the twenty individuals employed to work with the modifications of agents. After all, he was more suited to solutions and scalpels than guns and gore. But everyone knew the Hargreeves, and why wouldn’t they? A group of seven highly superpowered children adopted and raised by what was perhaps one of the most emotionally stunted men to ever grace the planet.

His colleagues were all crammed in the kitchenette, gathered around the coffee table on which sat a monitor, which was usually switched off and shoved in the corner. But today it had been dragged out from its usual place of residence and wiped clean of its dusty coating – showing a fuzzy image on the screen.

“Wait, they’re showing footage on the monitors?” Franz queried curiously. It wasn’t a secret that the antics of the timelines were observed, but it was usually restricted to screens connected to the infinite switchboard.

Thomas nodded, giving him a little shrug. “Unusual, I know. But it seems like they’ve added it as a channel. You can view them on every monitor – even the ones in your own quarters”

Franz had never really cared about the 2019 apocalypse. It was merely yet another one of the hundreds of timelines that had ended. Yet despite that, it was rather harrowing seeing what the environment was like, even through the lens of a square screen. The air was thick with smoke and dust from the smouldering rubble, and the whistling of the fierce wind sounded rather granular through the tinny speakers. He could see the glow of embers from within the wrecked buildings, the floor littered with the charred remains of human bodies.

And in the middle of it all, he could make just out a figure kneeling amongst the destruction, gazing up at what once appeared to be a rather grand and imposing building.

“Can we get a closer look?” Someone near the front asked. Another adjusted the dial on the side of the monitor; the screen flickering briefly to static and then to a front view of the person, close enough to make out their features.

God, he was just a child, much younger than Franz imagined he would be; he couldn't have been older than fourteen. It looked like his hair had once been neatly styled, but it was currently fluffy and windswept around his angular face. His academy uniform was caked in dust, and skin smeared with dirt and ash – so much so that the glistening tear tracks down his cheeks were glaringly obvious.

“Come on!” The boy shouted, clenching his fists with fierce determination. They fizzled and warped with a blue haze before spluttering into nothing. The boy shouted angrily in response, raking his hands through his mop of hair and kicking a nearby piece of rubble childishly, sniffling. 

“What’s he doing?” Franz queried.

Thomas cocked his head to one side in a sign he was listening, but his eyes remained fixed on the screen. “Trying to get back. It seems like he can jump forward with relative ease but moving back through time is something that he has yet to grasp. The poor lad’s really going through it, I mean this morning he found his dead siblings”

Franz hummed sympathetically, it mustn’t have been a nice discovery for the child, but life is harsh. His siblings were nothing but a drop in the ocean of those who perished in the 2019 timeline.

The boy clenched his fists again, his hands trembling and face strained. He could see that the child was struggling, and with each attempt at using his powers, he was looking weaker. He stopped counting after the sixth attempt, and eventually, the boy stumbled forward and gripped the mangled railing outside the building to keep himself upright. There was a light trickle of blood running over his lips from his nose, dripping off his chin and staining the front of his shirt. His face was pinched with pain and exhaustion.

“Are they going to send agents out to deal with the situation?” Franz asked, feeling somewhat saddened for him. He was rather pitiful to watch, the least The Commission could do was to put him out of his misery, at least that would end his unnecessary suffering. 

“Apparently not” Thomas replied, promptly breaking that train of thought. “Carmichael is allowing him to live at the moment – they’re interested in how the situation develops, and they don’t believe that he will impact the timeline. Rumours are going around that the case has been transferred to The Handler”

The Handler. A rather peculiar woman that Franz had yet to have direct dealings with. Although it was easy to catch sight of her around Headquarters – she seemed to radiate the type of energy that attracted the gaze of those around her. Like moths to a flame. Or rather, rats to poison. And that was without the rather eccentric outfits the woman had a liking for. They certainly went against company dress code, but Franz supposed that when you were a member of management, you could bend some of the rules.

“Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how this develops – I mean there’s already a bet going around as to how long he’ll last,” Thomas said. “I put in $30 that he lasts two weeks”

The boy now had his arms wrapped around his skinny body and was rocking gently in what Franz recognised was a self-soothing gesture. “What’s his name?”

“Number Five. Although I believe he just goes by Five”

“Like the number?”

“Like the number” Thomas nodded. 

Franz was quite impressed. Gossip spread quickly around The Commission – in a place where your life was so regimented, any variation was of interest. But by lunch news of Five had spread quickly and it seemed like every monitor he passed was fixed on the boy, showing footage of him as he interacted with the desolate environment.

And as macabre as it sounded, it offered a bit of interest to his otherwise bland day.

It was also the first time anything of the like had ever happened. Franz wasn’t quite sure if it was for the entertainment factor, or because the boy was one of the Hargreeves (or perhaps a touch of both) that appealed to management. But he couldn’t help shake the feeling that there was an ulterior motive to this, that they were viewing him as an experiment.

Franz could understand the appeal of that, he liked the thrill of studying a specimen.

He was passing a group of timeline workers on his way to the restroom when a snippet of their conversation caught his attention. There were two of them, dressed in their tailored suits with case files tucked under their arms.

“I bet he’ll be dead by the end of the week” The man laughed.

“You’re only saying that because you placed a bet for $60” The woman beside him replied.

The man nudged her on the arm. “Oh come on, did you see him earlier? He spent at least an hour throwing up after drinking puddle water. Surely he knows that you have to boil it first”

* * *

As much as he disliked getting involved in the workplace Commission drama, Franz liked people watching. There was a certain thrill about dissecting them and figuring out what made them tick. And something equally as fascinating about the inner workings of the human body, about the brain specifically; that what was essentially a lump of tissue, of glorified meat, could determine the programming of the vessel.

Sadly though, the Human Anatomy and Physiology department specialised mainly in simple modifications and dermatological tweaking – nothing fun, nothing challenging. Although one benefit of The Commission was that work finished at exactly 6pm, which meant that he could spend his evening in his private quarters, pouring over the works of Camillo Golgi, Ulf Van Euler, and Stanley Cohen.

His latest interest was Rodger Perry’s split-brain experiments. He could only aspire to reach a level of such accomplishment. And there was nothing better than working on his own research surrounded by the publications of the greats.

Tonight though, Franz couldn’t resist the urge. He had to haul the monitor out from where it was tucked in the sideboard, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d used it. Every one of The Commission's private quarters had them, and they had a set number of channels; often showing various programmes from a variety of time periods or updates regarding changes to Commission guidelines. They were smaller and more basic than those used within the Headquarters, but the screen was suitable enough.

Franz plugged it in and used his sleeve to wipe off the film of dust.

The monitor fizzled into life.

Five did not look well.

Franz had to give him credit, in the time since he had last tuned into his antics, Five had fashioned a shelter using a tarpaulin strung between a crumbling wall and a burnt minivan. A wooden chair and a dirty mattress sat in one corner. And in the other, a collection of pots and pans. For a shelter in the apocalypse, it looked rather suitable. However, the boy was currently curled up on the said mattress and clutching his stomach protectively, face pasty and sallow despite the darkness of the soot covering it.

It felt oddly perverse to be sat at his desk eating dinner, salmon en croute with blanched green bean salad, to be watching the boy suffer.

And yet, he couldn’t switch off.

* * *

When Franz came out of the shower the following day, rubbing a towel through his damp hair, he switched on the monitor. He told himself that it was for some background noise while he finished his ablutions, but in reality, it was because he was curious to see if the boy had survived the night.

The screen fizzled on, showing the boy looking drastically better than the day before.

There was a dented saucepan balanced precariously over a fire contained in an oil drum, the water within simmering gently. The shelter had a couple of new additions, a bicycle leaning against the chair and a small wagon filled with clothes. But most impressively, there was a small pile of tinned goods, as well as what appeared to be a carrier bag full of medical supplies.

Five was sat on the floor, fishing what appeared to be peach slices out of a tin with his fingers and consuming them hungrily.

Despite what he overheard yesterday; Franz couldn’t help but get the feeling that he would manage to sustain himself for longer than a week. He’d never been a man for gambling, but he wondered if he should place a bet.

* * *

“It’s official, he’s gone mad. I suppose that it was only time” Thomas said, leaning towards the monitor with keen interest. Charlotte, their department anaesthesiologist, was sat beside him, looking equally enthralled and only half paying attention to the microscope slides she was labelling. “Although I must admit that I thought his sanity would last more than two days”

For someone that existed on another timeline and was only accessible through a screen, Five had somehow found himself to be quite a celebrity within The Commission. He was the talking point in the labs, there were discussions about him in the lunchroom, and the betting poll had reached such a scale that it demanded its own notice board - pride of place in the entrance to headquarters.

The monitor that had previously been delegated to the confines of the backroom was now in the main lab, balanced on the side table in the corner. It was a constant background noise for the otherwise quiet room, filling it with Five’s rambling chatter. The department manager didn’t mind so long as they got the work completed, and if Franz was going to be honest, he knew that she was just as interested in his antics as much as they all were.

“You ever heard of the Pit of Despair?” The said woman piped up to no one in particular.

Thomas’ eyebrows pulled down in thought for a brief second, a look of confusion on his face. “I’ve heard of it, the monkey experiments, right? By Harry Harrolds?”

“Close. Psychologist Harry Harlow” Charlotte corrected. “He removed infant monkeys from their mothers, leaving them alone in an enclosure devoid of any life for between six weeks to a year – which heightened symptoms of depression and psychosis. Concluding that monkeys, being very social creatures, emerge emotionally damaged when placed in isolation. I believe that the same could be said for humans”

Franz eyed the monitor from where he was helping Charlotte with the slides, interest piqued.

Five looked remarkably cheery given both the circumstances and the state of him. He was currently sat in a chair with a hip flask clutched in his hand, chatting animatedly to what appeared to be half a mannequin propped up in the chair adjacent. The mannequin looked rather worse for wear, although Five had clearly made an effort to tart her up a bit, as she was wearing a sunhat and polka dot blouse, painted eyes covered by a pair of large sunglasses secured around her head with a piece of string.

“Do you think I should stay put?” Five queried, cocking his head towards her. He nodded after a few moments of pause, commenting, “Yes, I guess you are right. It would be better to stay in familiar surroundings”

“It’s kind of sad when you think about it,” Thomas said thoughtfully. “To be the last living person in the world must be an incredibly isolating experience. He is clearly projecting his own consciousness onto it. I wonder when he will start to view it as another person, rather than the mannequin it is”

Charlotte hummed in agreement. “It’s clearly a coping mechanism. Akin to that of a toddler and their comfort item – only with a touch more insanity. It truly is fascinating”

“I’m so glad I have you,” Five’s voice said through the speakers of the monitor, clearly audible despite the background noise of clinking beakers and rustling of paperwork. “You always have such fantastic ideas Dolores”

“Dolores,” Thomas said. “An interesting choice for a name. I wonder why he chose it”

“It’s Spanish in origin. It means sorrow or pain” Charlotte replied, ever the hive of knowledge.

Franz reached for another box of microscope slides to label, watching as Five kissed Dolores on the cheek and gave her a smile that didn’t quite reach his empty eyes.

* * *

The boy had tried numerous times to do something with the bodies of his siblings.

The first day he froze at the sight of them, his small body wracked with raw sobs. On the second day he ventured more closely to them, and curiously, made them look a bit more presentable. He brushed the hair off the woman’s face and closed the half-open kohl lined eyes of the scrawny one. Then said his apologies to the one dressed in leather as he removed the knives from his harness, slipping them into the backpack he had slung over his back.

The third day saw him tending to an abnormally large man trapped under a pile of rubble. Five spent hours trying to move his body, trying to push the debris away with his bare hands to get at him. Eventually, he gave up when night fell, stifling hiccups of tears as he wrapped his bloodied hands with bandages.

Franz, Thomas, and Charlotte were sat in the kitchenette adjoining the lab when it happened.

On his fourth day since arriving in the apocalypse, Five buried his siblings.

“Poor kid, having to bury your own family” Charlotte remarked, stabbing some of her chicken salad with her fork. Thomas nodded in agreement, although he also looked mildly curious. Franz didn’t blame him; he often found his thoughts drifting to what the boy would do with their bodies.

The graves are shallowly dug but cover his sibling’s bodies well enough; the largest sibling which he couldn’t move is buried under a pile of rubble in a sort of makeshift tumulus. He then spent some time scratching their names into broken planks of floorboards as crude headstones. Luther. Diego. Allison. Klaus. And curiously, two markers without graves; Ben, and Vanya.

“Ben and Vanya? I wonder why their bodies aren’t there” Franz said.

“Ben died I believe, on a mission gone wrong. I think he’s buried in the academy garden. Vanya’s body is probably in the rubble, although she was the one that caused the apocalypse, so it could be anywhere” Charlotte commented.

Thomas nodded. “Yeah, Ben died in 2006. Vanya published an autobiography and there’s a chapter about him. I actually have a copy and it’s quite an interesting read, you’re welcome to borrow it if you like”

“Ooh, I call dibs on the first read. Sorry Franz, you’ll have to wait your turn” Charlotte grinned, elbowing him playfully in the side. Franz shrugged, he could probably find a copy in The Commission library anyway.

“I’m sorry” Came Five’s wet voice, interrupting their conversation, and their attention was snapped back to the monitor.

He was standing in front of their graves, hands clenched tightly into fists and his lower lip wobbling. It was the first time Franz had heard him speak since yesterday; his voice hoarse and croaky from the crying and the dry heat of the fires that still burned. He sounded defeated, lifeless, and so terribly young. No child should ever sound so broken. Dolores was propped up in a wagon beside the boy, and Franz realised that Five had draped a black shawl around her shoulders. Clothing appropriate for a funeral.

“I’m sorry I left, I hope you understood that I was angry at dad, I wasn’t angry at you guys. I was planning on coming back, I was planning on taking you all with me – somewhere safe”

Five sat down heavily on the ground and retrieved a notepad from his backpack, flipping it open to a page covered with scribblings. “I’ve been working on some equations. I’m sure that I can figure out how to get back to you. I promise that I won't stop trying. I'll save you”

“Damn, poor kid” Thomas sighed, noisily crunching an apple. “He doesn’t understand that his efforts are futile. What is it that The Handler is always yammering on about?”

“Que Sera Sera” Charlotte answered. “I swear that it’s her catchphrase. Sometimes I hear it in my sleep”

“God, tell me about it” Franz groaned. “Knowing my luck it’ll be the last thing I hear before I die”

“You’ve jinxed it now” Charlotte snorted.

They eat the rest of their lunch listening to Five’s noisy sobbing.

* * *

For being the last person (or living person, if you counted Dolores) left on earth, Five could be surprisingly loud.

The young man had developed a tendency to sing during his travels around the city, occupying time as he wheeled his wagon down the destroyed streets and collected various supplies and trinkets. His voice was slightly off-key but strangely comforting nevertheless, a mixture of songs, some of which Franz recognised and others he did not. Oddly Five seemed to have a liking for My Chemical Romance, Franz probably knew the lyrics to their greatest hits off by heart with how many times he’d heard Five belt them out at the top of his lungs.

There had also been a brief spell where he tried to take up the violin. It lasted three long and _excruciating_ weeks of him sawing at the strings with a kind of determined fierceness before he gave up, commenting to Dolores that he should “leave the violin to Vanya”. Franz didn’t know if Vanya was any good, but if he was being honest, the vast majority of the population were probably more musically inclined.

But today. Five was quiet.

He was currently sat cross-legged in front of the fire, hunched over a large A3 sketchbook and drawing with some art supplies he unearthed after his last raid at a partially standing stationary store. He froze suddenly, eyebrows pulling down in confusion and pencil hovering over the paper.

“The scar on Diego’s face…” He began, tapping the end of the pencil against his mouth and looking up at Dolores. “Was it on the left side of his face or the right?”

Dolores gazed blankly ahead.

“I think it was the right” Five murmured. “Or was it the left? No, I’m pretty sure it was the right”

“It was the right” Charlotte confirmed idly, busy preparing notes for the modifications for the two agents they were operating on tomorrow. From beside her Thomas nodded in agreement. Franz just made a kind of noncommittal noise, the only sibling he could visualise was Vanya, and that was because of her photograph on the back of the autobiography Five was carrying around. 

“What do you mean ‘why does it matter’, of course it matters” Five’s agitated voice came through the speakers, he flipped the sketchbook around towards Dolores and tapped the sketch of Diego with his pencil frantically. It was quite a good drawing if Franz was being honest, all six of his adult siblings depicted from the shoulders up. Although Ben was surrounded by question marks – it made sense really, as Five had guessed what his brother would have looked like if he’d made it to adulthood.

“I want to remember” Five continued, gesturing towards his mannequin wife with the pencil. “I remember what they looked like as teenagers, but I want to remember them as adults. It’s easy for Vanya, I have a photograph. But I don’t want to forget what the others looked like. I can’t forget them”

Dolores remained silent. She was a mannequin after all.

Five sighed, long and drawn out, placing the sketchbook back on his lap carefully. He gazed down at it fondly and carefully brushed his fingers across their charcoal faces and frozen smiles. “It’s okay Dolores, I know you weren’t trying to be mean. I forgive you. It’s just, with every day that goes by I forget their faces a little bit more. I want to remember what they look like”

“How long has he been in the apocalypse now?” New recruit Cynthia Nichols piped up from her desk. She'd only been recruited two weeks ago, but she was already enraptured by the famous man in the apocalypse.

“Gosh, it must be about six years – that makes him nineteen now” Thomas laughed. “Who would have thought that he would have made it this far”

“The end of Allison’s hair was lighter than the rest, wasn’t it?” Five said quietly to himself, barely audible over the background noise of the lab. He used an eraser to delicately remove some of the pigment from the sketch, and then went back in with the pencil to define his sister’s curls.

He had changed quite a bit in the time that Franz had been watching him. Gone was the scared and frightened little boy sobbing at his sibling’s graves; now a man that accepted any challenge with a hardened gaze and steely determination. Franz had to admit, it was quite admirable.

But the most obvious change was his appearance, his hair had grown long enough that it was usually pulled back into a low ponytail or a bun, and his skin held the kind of warmth of someone that spent the majority of their time in the sun. Long gone was his uniform, having grown out of it years ago, not to mention it had more holes in it than actual fabric. Instead, he was currently wearing the quirky patchwork coat that belonged to his brother, faux-fur trim and all. Slim legs covered in a pair of denim jeans he'd snagged during his lastest raid, finished with a pair of lace-up boots suitable for walking long distances. He would have been quite a handsome man, the type of person to turn heads, if he wasn’t living in the apocalypse and his body didn’t show obvious signs of malnourishment.

“Shall I draw you, Dolores? I know you’ve always said that you’ve wanted to wear a ballgown. I could draw you in one if you would like. Yellow, with sequins”

Dolores said nothing.

“Excellent!” Five clapped his hands, turning over to a fresh page in the book.

* * *

Franz was on autopilot as he modified the lower limbs of Agent Tucker, his body currently laid upon the operating table in front of him, chest rising and falling steadily under the influence of the anaesthetic. It was a simple modification really, minor adjustments of the gastrocnemius and strengthening of the knee joints – almost every basic level agent had undergone the same procedure. Some of the more specialist agents had more complicated modifications, from the complete remodelling of the skeletal structures to the implantation of metal plates to protect vital organs.

He was halfway through sawing Tucker’s tibia when surgical assistant Dr Jones struck up a conversation. “Did you watch the apocalypse channel this morning?”

“What happened?” Franz asked. He had to spend the morning checking over Tucker's surgical notes, trust his luck that it would be the time something would happen on Five's end. He finally felt the lack of resistance of the saw as it cut through the last slither of bone, which Franz was rather thankful for, as the vibrations could really do a number for his RSI.

Dr Jones retrieved the suction tube from the tray beside him and connected it to the neighbouring pump. “Number Five broke his leg while searching a ruined pharmacy, of all places. The floor gave way underneath him”

Franz thought that it was rather ironic that Five broke his leg on the day that he was breaking Tucker’s, although Tucker’s was by choice. He watched as Dr Jones manoeuvred the suction tube into the incision of the agent’s calf, draining away some of the excess blood for easier visibility to the bone.

“Did he get out okay?” He asked, feeling strangely relieved when Dr Jones nodded. “The little fucker managed to drag himself out there. It’s a nasty break though, an open fracture, he needs to be careful about infection”

“Do you think he’ll survive? I mean an open fracture’s pretty nasty, especially in a place with no medical care”

Dr Jones laughed, shooting him a disbelieving look. “Come on, don’t be ridiculous. Are you forgetting when he got sepsis last year, and then when he managed to impale himself on a rusty pole. And not forgetting the time when he nearly burnt himself to death when his sleeping bag caught fire. That guy is like a cockroach, I swear he just keeps on going”

Franz chuckled, using the scalpel to make the incision slightly longer. The surgical blade slid through the skin and flesh like a hot knife through butter. “Well, I suppose you are what you eat”

Dr Jones snorted, amusement clearly written on his face. “I mean who would have thought the chap would make it to forty-two. I remember putting in a bet that he would only last three months. Let’s just hope that a simple broken leg won’t be the thing that finally sees him off. That would be rather anticlimactic after everything”

God, forty-two. Time was such an interesting concept at The Commission – it seemed like the outside world moved at a pace far faster than that experienced at Headquarters. Yet at the same time, it seemed slower. Five was ageing at a normal rate, but when Franz looked in the mirror every morning, he looked the same age he did when he first arrived at the organisation. He had long since given up trying to comprehend how the dynamics of it worked, as it caused far too many headaches. All he knew was that once your contract ended, you lived out the rest of your life normally, wrinkles and all.

After hearing the news at work, Franz didn’t waste any time when he got home. Only fifteen minutes since coming through the door, he’d already changed into more comfortable clothes and made himself a cup of tea, settling down onto his desk chair.

It appeared that Five had managed to get the bone back into his leg, and was conscious, which really was quite a feat. It was honestly a rather gruesome scene, Five sprawled out in the middle of a blood-soaked blanket with his eyes half-closed, like some sort of bizarre summoning ritual. His right leg had been tightly wound with bandages, splinted straight with a stick. The ground around him littered with empty alcohol bottles, presumably to numb the pain.

It was going to take months before he could put his full weight on it, and that was if he had managed to get the bone in the correct alignment. And not forgetting that the risk of infection was high. But the main thing was that he was alive.

He had to give it to him, the man was quite a survivor.

“Cheers to making it” Franz said to no one, toasting the screen in front of him. If he were in his position, he would no doubt have died years ago.

Franz hoped Five died of old age. Of all the deaths he deserved, old age was the kindest.

* * *

“I think I’ve got it Dolores!”

Franz perked up from where he was lounging on his couch, a rather dog-eared copy of The Excursion in his hands. It was one of his favourites and while he could probably recite the whole thing from front to back, there was something rather nostalgic about handling the physical book. He placed it aside and instead turned his attention to the monitor, adjusting the dial to heighten the volume.

He had got into the habit of leaving it on in the background while he was in his quarters of an evening. He had to admit that the background noise of Five’s chatter was oddly comforting – even if the majority of it was arguing with Dolores about his drinking habits.

“Yes!” Five laughed, his smile visible through the wild scruff of his facial hair. “I’ve definitely got it!”

The man had settled at the ruins of Argyle Library shortly after the leg injury sustained at the pharmacy, an injury that he had never quite recovered from if the limp was anything to go by. Years had passed since and he had made it into quite a comfortable looking place – the rubble moved aside and stacked into walls to shelter him from the wind. The floor was covered in a patchwork of blankets and rugs, and there was even a makeshift dining room off the one side. And in the centre of it all was the ever-present fire. He'd even managed to create a small hydroponics crop in a plastic paddling pool after discovering some horticulture books, meaning that he was able to consume something other than tinned goods.

It also seemed like Five had become rather nostalgic with his age, as the shelter was full of various Umbrella Academy mementoes; lunch boxes, posters, comic books, and even figurines. It was quite homely for a dwelling created in such a desolate place.

The said man was currently standing off to one side, a stubby crayon clutched in his left hand as he scanned the expanse of scribblings on the walls. Every available surface of the shelter was covered in a mess of numbers and calculations, Franz recognised a few of them, although most of them were too obscure to decipher.

“I think I can do this Dolores” Five turned around, gazing excitedly at his mannequin wife who was currently sat in a plastic garden chair.

The man paused for a moment, a silence that often meant that Dolores was talking, before speaking again. “Yes, I’m definitely sure. I didn’t correctly account for my weight in my last attempt, and that was the only variable. But this is going to be a big one this time, it’s going to drain me”

Five crossed the clearing and sat heavily in the chair adjacent to Dolores, pouring both himself and her a glass of wine. “I tell you what, I think we deserve to drink to that. I’ll attempt the jump tomorrow morning, and if my calculations are correct, I should land a day before I ran out the door. I’ve got a really good feeling about this you know”

 _Interesting_ , Franz mused.

Alongside the betting chart on Five’s life, there was also a tally of how many times the man had attempted to jump back. If Franz remembered correctly, he had attempted a total of eighty-three times.

“I could see my family tomorrow,” Five said softly, blinking back tears. “I can hardly wait. I hope they’ll be happy to see me”

Franz couldn’t help but smile when Five clinked his glass against Dolores’.

* * *

Franz had a restless night. Not from a night of worrying about work, but rather second-hand anxiousness for Five. The man seemed so certain that jump number eighty-four was going to be the one that would succeed, and to be honest, his optimism was infectious.

He switched on his monitor the moment his alarm blared, but instead of the usual image of Five’s antics in the apocalypse, which had now become the highest viewed channel across The Commission, the screen was instead displaying a rather scenic selection of worldwide views. The Grand Canyon. The Eiffel Tower. London Bridge. La Sagrada Familia. All the photographs were overlaid with a rather dull instrumental song involving an assortment of violins and pianos. It made his ears feel like they were going to bleed. He was more of a jazz sort of man.

He frowned and adjusted the dial on the side, it wouldn’t be the first time he had accidentally put the monitor into screensaver mode. The screen flickered to black and then to one of static. He adjusted the dial again. The screen flickered to black and then to one showing an SMPTE colour bar screen.

Odd.

He tried the old-fashioned method of ‘turning it off and back on again’ for good measure to no avail. Instead, he decided to cut his losses and forgo breakfast to get to the lab early, hopeful that he’d be able to make it in time to see Five attempt the jump.

Unfortunately, it seemed like it wasn’t just his that was playing up.

“Hey Franz, was your monitor acting strange this morning?” Thomas questioned as soon as he came through the door.

There was a small crowd gathered around the screen chattering in tones of annoyance, it seemed like he wasn’t the only one who decided to witness Five’s next jump on the lab monitor. Charlotte huffed in frustration and fiddled with the dial on the side, the screen flickering to the same screen of static that was showing on his earlier.

“I thought it was just mine playing up” Franz frowned.

“Apparently every monitor in both Headquarters and the private quarters are doing the same”

“Of course the surveillance system would play up when he was going to attempt another time jump” Charlotte muttered, she had abandoned the dial and had now resorted to thumping the side of it with gay abandon. “I actually wanted to see if he would manage it this time, he seemed pretty certain that he got the correct calculations last night”

“Don’t you think it’s a bit fishy?” Cynthia piped up from where she was perched on her bench stool, and upon receiving various looks of confusion, elaborated, “Of all the days that the Infinite Switchboard would play up, it’s on the day that he was going to jump. It just seems odd – I’ve never known the systems to go down”

Now that he was thinking about it, Cynthia did have a point.

“While the antics of Number Five are rather fascinating, we are being paid to work and not to gossip” Came an exasperated voice, and the group turned to see lab manager Dr Jenkins buttoning her coat, looking at them with an eyebrow raised.

“Our apologies” Franz said ruefully.

Dr Jenkins nodded, pulling on some nitrile gloves. “We have to do a rather complicated skeletal modification on Agent Garcia this afternoon and I require the assistance of everyone within the department. I trust that the monitors will be back to normal this evening”

Despite what Dr Jenkins said, Franz’s monitor was still showing the SMPTE colour bar screen when he switched it on in the evening.

He hoped that jump number eighty-four was successful for Five.

* * *

Franz awakened a whole hour before his alarm due to the distinctive sound of a pneumatic tube. He was vaguely puzzled, somewhat since he was still half asleep, but mainly due to the fact that he had never once been issued a personal message through the system.

Nevertheless, he rubbed a hand across his eyes and pulled back the covers, sliding his feet into his slippers. And don’t get him started why did they have to deliver them in such a random assortment of places. He plucked the tube off the shelf from where it was sat next to the deli meat and closed the fridge door behind him. The casing of the container was cool to the touch and the lid offered little resistance as he twisted it off, the slip of paper sitting innocently inside. Franz had a brief thought that it was regarding the modifications undertaken on Agent Garcia, but instead, it was a call for him to make his way to work at his earliest convenience.

Of course, in true Commission style, without any explanation.

“For god's sake” He mumbled tiredly and stumbled his way over to the bathroom.

It was strange to be navigating the halls of Headquarters before the workers had arrived. The building could give off a cold and impersonal atmosphere at the best of times, but that was only amplified at this early hour. Thankfully the silence was soon interrupted by the noise of his colleagues gathered outside the door to the lab. They were in various states of dishevelment, their clothes hastily buttoned and hair brushed but not styled, the blurs of sleeplessness evident under their eyes. Thomas was easy to spot amongst the group due to standing a whole head taller than the rest, and he squeezed his way through the crowd to get to him.

“I’m guessing you received the message too? A rather rude awakening, I might add” He said rather sarcastically in lieu of a greeting.

“Do you have any idea what this is about?” Thomas grumbled under his breath, blinking back the haze of sleeplessness.

“I was hoping that you would know the answer to tha-”

Franz’s words were cut off by the distinctive sound of heeled shoes on a tiled floor, lulling the hushed conversation into anxious silence.

The control let out a little beep as it unlocked, the door swinging open. And of all people to step through it, the last person he expected was The Handler. He had never once known her to visit the department in all of the time he’d worked there. She was dressed up to the nines as usual, in a dark fit n’ flare dress and red stilettos with heels like knives. She looked beautiful, enigmatic, and utterly dangerous.

“Good morning!” She chirped with her usual zeal, looking completely unphased at the fact she had awoken them before the sun had fully risen. There was a rather pleased and knowing smile on her lips, which made something heavy settle in the pit of his stomach. “I bet you are all wondering why I called you here today. You see, I have something rather special for you”

Franz could see a few of his colleagues shifting anxiously on their feet, he was glad he wasn’t the only one feeling disconcerted by this conversation. The Handler stepped aside, a slim hand gesturing inside the room. “Well come in, don’t be shy!”

Dr Jenkins was the first venture through the threshold, looking mildly peeved at being invited into her own department, with the other staff filtering in after her. Franz could immediately sense the drastic shift in the atmosphere, the air around them punctuated by the hushed mutterings of excitement and shock. There was something in the middle of the room, dark against the bright artificial lights and the whiteness of the tiled interior.

No, not something.

Someone.

“I’m sure that you are aware of who he is already, but for those who don’t, meet Mr Five”

“Hello” The man said simply. It was rather strange, hearing his voice in person rather than through the tinny monitor speakers. He sounded hesitant and apprehensive like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of the situation. It must be quite a shock, to suddenly be in such a clean and sterile room surrounded by so many people - a drastic contrast to the filthy and polluted environment he had spent the last forty-five years living in.

“Why are you here?” Charlotte questioned, and then flushed when she realised she’d spoken aloud. The Handler laughed, bright and cheery, reaching across to pinch Five’s cheek.

“Five and I reached a negotiation. In exchange for five years of service here at The Commission, he will be able to retire to any place and year of his choosing” She gave him a wink and then added. “Well, do you have anything to say?”

Five looked taken aback for a few moments, gaze moving from The Handler’s to sweep across the group of gaping scientists gathered in front of him. Franz tried to give him what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

“Thank you for taking me in” He said eventually.

He was shorter than he looked on the screen, standing at barely over 5’7”. But then again, Franz supposed that nearly a semi century spent consuming tinned food, roaches, and the limited greens he'd grown through his hydroponics system was going to stunt your growth. The clothes he was wearing hung off him and only accentuated the thinness of his body; skin ingrained with a lifetime of dirt and destruction. And there was a stench of death that seemed to cling to him like a second skin; overall, he looked like the very picture of a hermit. Yet The Handler was gazing at him as if he were her most prized possession.

Strangely, Franz supposed he was. They were all possessions of The Commission.

“Well, we are glad to welcome you here at The Commission, Five” Dr Jenkins greeted, breaking the shocked silence that had settled over the room. Five gave her a tight smile, looking remarkably uncomfortable at the attention on him.

“I shall be leaving him in your care, I trust that you will get him all spick and span” The Handler tapped her index finger against his nose playfully, the blood-red of her nail stark against his skin. Five flinched violently at the action, and The Handler’s smile only widened in response. A predatory and possessive expression.

“In the meantime, I’ll get you something more suitable to wear. Clothes make the man, Five. And then we could have a spot of lunch – how does Chinese sound? Have you ever had Chinese?”

Five shook his head, more distracted by the woman’s fingers as she brushed over his cheekbones. The Handler pursed her lips in a look of restrained amusement at his discomfort. “Well, you’re in for a treat! I shall be back about midday”

The sound of her heels echoed against the hard surfaces of the room as she made her way over to the door, followed soon by the familiar sound of the beeping control panel as it locked behind her.

Five stared after her, a vaguely puzzled look on his face.

“Welcome to the Human Anatomy and Physiology Department, Five” Dr Jenkins said, using a deliberately gentler tone than she usually used – as if she were dealing with a frightened animal. She took him by the arm and started leading him towards the examination room. “Here in the department, we deal with all things related to the human body. Today I’ll just be conducting some minor tests to gauge your current physical state, as well as administering any medicine that…”

Dr Jenkins’ voice trailed off into muffled background noise as she shut the door behind them, tilting the blind on the other side so they couldn’t be seen through the frosted glass.

“Well,” Thomas heaved a sigh, loud in the quietness of the room. “Of all the things I was expecting, I certainly wasn’t expecting this”

* * *

After years of routine, it felt strange to not spend every available moment watching Five and Dolores in the apocalypse. It was an overnight shift really, all of the monitors dotted around Headquarters had been switched off, and the one in the lab had been shoved back in the corner of the break room.

Normally Franz liked the quiet. But now his own quarters felt oddly… _empty_.

Franz didn’t see Five until three days after his arrival at The Commission, and to say that he was in for a shock when he arrived at work was an understatement. The man sat opposite Dr Jenkins at her desk looked remarkably different from how he did prior, so much so that he did a double-take. Initially, he hadn't realised that it was the same person. 

He was clean shaven, with his previously wild hair closely cropped and neatly parted, moustache trimmed into a pencil style. Curiously, he was wearing the clothes that the field agents wore rather than the timeline workers, which was the department he thought the man would have been assigned to given his age. The dirty rags had been swapped for a tailored charcoal suit and a crisp white button-up, alongside the distinctive dark tie and silver pin. He was still painfully thin, but with a controlled diet to gently reintroduce him to food, it wouldn’t be long before that was rectified.

“Dr Koller” Dr Jenkins greeted pleasantly when he entered the room, ushering him over and patting the vacant chair next to her.

“Good morning” He replied stiffly as he slid into the chair, trying to ignore the faint fluttering of nerves as to why he’d been singled out.

He’d always thought that Five had brown eyes, but now that he’s close, he could see that they were a shade between green and blue. In fact, there were quite a few aspects of his face that weren’t visible through a monitor. There were two moles on his left cheek, located slightly higher than a dimple. He had a strong, almost aquiline nose, and a broad jawline. And now that he had been cleaned up, there was a faintly aristocratic quality to his face, the type of face you would see in one of those antiquarian paintings of the Baroque era.

“Agent Five, this is Dr Koller”

“Please, call me Franz” He said, offering a hand. Five scrutinised it briefly before accepting the handshake. Franz ignored the way he flinched when their hands touched, the last thing he wanted to do was make the other man uncomfortable in his presence. They were going to have to do some work to get him comfortable with contact again. 

“A pleasure to meet you, Franz. You from Germany?" 

"Austria, close to the border of Slovenia. We speak German though, or most people do" Franz smiled. 

“We have a real mixture of backgrounds and experience here in the department, all the way from Australia to Iceland. Although most people speak English for ease of use" Dr Jenkins nodded, tapping her pen absentmindedly against her notepad. "As a senior member of the department, Dr Koller here will be overseeing your progression here at The Commission” 

Well, that was certainly news to him. Although it seemed like their department were always the last to hear of decisions by the management. Not that he was complaining though, he was reluctant to admit it, but the thought of learning the inner workings of the famous Five was thrilling. The man had been quite fascinating to watch through the monitor and was even more enthralling in person.

“Oh” Five said, turning his attention to him. "Ich freue mich auf die Zusammenarbeit mit Ihnen" 

"You speak German?" Franz commented. His pronunciation wasn't that of a native speaker, but it was still impressive. 

Five snorted, "You have to be inventive when it comes to passing time in an apocalypse, and well, I was in a library - it seemed like the most logical thing to do"

"Well then" Franz chuckled. "Gleichfalls"

* * *

After Five's sudden appearance, and then being told that he would be overseeing his progress, arriving at the lab to find surprises waiting for him had become somewhat of a normal occurrence. So he shouldn't have been surprised when he turned up at the lab on Thursday morning, four months after the arrival of Five, to see none other than The Handler waiting for him; a vision of scarlet in her blood-red wiggle dress and burgundy beret. She had an elegant cigarette holder held delicately between her slim fingers, completely disregarding the blatant safety risk of smoking within a lab.

“Dr Koller! Just the man I was looking for” She greeted with a friendly smile, unfurling herself from the chair and slinking across the room towards him like a cat towards its prey. Franz spotted Thomas across the room, who was making a rather poor attempt at looking like he wasn’t nosing in on what was happening. He sent him a quizzical look, but his friend merely lifted his shoulders in a shrug, mouthing _“No idea”_.

“Good morning, what can I do for you?” He smiled in a way that he hoped wasn’t portraying the unease he was feeling.

“I want you to come with me today,” She said, and upon seeing the look on his face, added, “And don’t you fret, I have permission from Dr Jenkins”

“Ah” He said simply, at a loss for words, and obediently followed the woman back out the room and down the corridor. If he was being honest he’d rather repeatedly stab himself in the hand with a rusty fork than deal with her. But he was being paid to follow her orders, so if he wanted his monthly paycheck he couldn't be too fussy. 

“I must say, you’ve done a remarkable job with Number Five” The Handler remarked, ushering him through a door to the west wing of the building. He’d never been to the Physical Training department before, not that had ever needed to. The area was restricted for use by the agents, a labyrinth of rooms filled with shooting ranges and gyms.

“What with the modifications undertaken in combination with the training, he is a changed man” She continued, shooting him a smile.

“I’m glad to hear that” And he really was. Five had evolved quickly from the frail man fresh out of the apocalypse to the kind of individual that carried an authoritative air about him. It was quite a transformation, and he couldn’t help but feel a sense of second-hand pride whenever he overheard someone praising the man's capabilities.

“Of course, we have only undertaken minor modifications. But if he continues to improve, we might consider the possibility of some more invasive procedures. Metal plates perhaps?” He suggested.

“Well!” The Handler began, tapping him on the cheek. “That’s why I have called you here. I wish to discuss a few things with you”

She led him down towards the end of a seemingly never-ending corridor that forked off into two separate rooms. The doorway on the left opened up into a space akin to a small sports arena, occupied only by three agents sparring; their grunts amplified in the expanse of the room. Instead, The Handler grasped his elbow and led him through a doorway named simply as Training Room 8, shutting and locking it behind her.

The room was the opposite to the one he last saw, looking more like a police interrogation room than one used for training. It was split into two, himself and The Handler screened off in one third of the space by a large floor to ceiling window. The other side was sparsely decorated, a polished wooden floor and concrete walls, illuminated by three fluorescent strip lights. And in the middle of it, was Five, dressed plainly in standard-issue Commission training clothes.

“It’s a one-way mirror” The Handler commented, tapping the glass as if Five were a fish in a tank. He jerked at the noise and looked in their direction. The Handler grinned with amusement and pressed a button on the control panel in front of her, the speakers in the room fizzling with static.

“Five!” The Handler welcomed. “Can you hear me okay?”

“Yes” He answered, voice sounding slightly muffled due to the poor sound quality.

“Sorry to call you here and interrupt your training. I have a task for you, easy peasy given the progress you have been making” The Handler drawled, the smile on her face evident in the tone of her voice. “I’m going to send another agent in with you, and you are to use any means necessary to incapacitate him. Easy as that!”

Five looked thoughtful for a few moments, mulling over what she had just said. “Okay. What do I get out of this?”

“My my, so goal motivated” The Handler laughed. “Tell you what, if you kill him I will allow you thirty minutes this evening to work on those equations of yours”

Franz saw a look of shock flash the other man’s face, a look he knew was mirrored on his own, before he quickly schooled his features back into one of indifference. “Kill him?”

The Handler nodded, and then swiftly remembered the glass between them. “Yes” She clarified.

“Do you think this is a good idea?” Franz spoke up, keeping his voice hushed so Five couldn’t hear him. The Handler shot him an irritated look, daring him to speak up, and Franz obediently pressed his lips together.

“Do I have any weapons to complete this task?” Came Five’s hesitant voice, breaking their silent staring match.

“Oh” The Handler purred, turning back towards the agent. “The weapons are your hands my darling”

Five gazed down at them and flexed his fingers into fists, the air around them sparking blue and warping in ripples. He looked decidedly strong at that moment, with his once thin frame filled out into a stockier build, positively thrumming with power. Franz had to admit, he certainly looked the part. 

“Look” Franz started, feeling oddly vulnerable. “I don’t understand why I’m here. I just work with human anatomy; I don’t understand how seeing him murder someone is going to further my research”

The Handler sighed with exasperation, as if she were dealing with a petulant child. “Murder is such a strong word. Think of it as…disposing of trash. And I believe that you need to watch this to fully understand what I am wanting to achieve”

“But-”

The Handler pressed a finger to his lips, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Hush, just watch” 

She turned and pressed another button on the panel. There was a faint buzzing noise followed by the door on the other side of the room opening. Two guards walked in, hauling a struggling man between them, whom they promptly flung on the floor.

The man scrambled up with a wild look in his eyes, making a desperate attempt to slip back out the door, but he was too late. He looked vaguely familiar; Agent Reiner? Agent Reynolds? There was news last week that an agent tried to break his contract by making an unauthorised trip to 1940s New York. Franz had never considered what The Commission did with agents that defected, but he supposed that being used as cannon fodder made sense.

“You hag!” The man spat in heavily accented English, kicking a booted foot against the glass between them, which didn’t so much as shake from the force of it. “I know you’re behind this you absolute hag. Can't even show your face, huh?”

“Agent Reiner” The Handler tutted disappointedly. “That is no way to speak to a lady. Haven't you remembered anything from your hospitality classes”

“Do I look like I give a flying fuck if you're female? I was only two months off the end of my contract – two months! I needed to see my family. I couldn’t take it anymore”

The Handler merely rolled her eyes dramatically and pressed the button from earlier, cutting the audio off abruptly and plunging them into a tense silence. Franz could still see the frantic movements of Reiner’s mouth on the other side, no doubt shouting obscenities at the woman.

“Agent Reiner” The Handler said absentmindedly. “So much potential, and yet such a disappointment”

The agent was now taking some time to observe his surroundings, eyes locked on Five with a slightly bewildered look on his face. He had no doubt heard rumours about the time traveller; in the short time the man had spent at The Commission he had gained quite a reputation. Reiner said something to him, jabbing a finger in his direction before falling into a defensive stance; knees bent with legs shoulder width apart, fists raised in front of his chest. By contrast, Five looked remarkably unfazed, his posture loose and relaxed, instead inspecting his surroundings. 

“Are they going to take all day?” The Handler muttered, sending him a smirk as if they were sharing an inside joke. Franz chuckled awkwardly and eyed the door with longing.

Reiner swung first, a mean right hook which connected with thin air as the other man ducked to avoid it. Despite the modifications to his leg, Five still moved protectively on it, Franz guessed that it would take some time for him to feel comfortable using it again. The room flashed with a blaze of blue and suddenly Five was behind Reiner, delivering a swift kick to the back of his knees. Another flash and he was back at the front, delivering a punch to the soft flesh of the agent’s stomach.

It was strange to feel both nauseous and fascinated at the same time. Franz had witnessed Five’s ability to blink on numerous occasions, although it was limited to the confines of the laboratory as they undertook their tests and readings. But seeing him now, manoeuvring around the space as if he was born to do it, and using his powers for combat, it really was quite spectacular.

Reiner screamed something, words or merely a yell, Franz didn’t know; delivering a rather solid punch to his opponent’s face. Five stumbled backwards, blood trickling down the lower half of his face from a split lip. He rubbed a hand across it, smearing it up from the corner of his mouth to his ear in something rather like a Glasgow grin.

He blinked again and reappeared to the side, swiftly falling into a bent stance and striking Reiner across the back of the head in a roundhouse kick. Franz winced in sympathy as the agent fell forward rather unceremoniously to the floor, forehead rebounding off the surface and leaving a smear of blood in its wake.

Five stood motionless for a few moments, staring down at the unconscious agent with a look of conflict on his face and eyebrows pinched together with thought. He crouched down with a resigned sigh, one knee on the ground and the other on the agent's back. And then in a matter of seconds, swiftly and efficiently, he grasped the agent on either side of the head and jerked quickly to the side. When he released his grip, Reiner’s head fell forward with a surprising amount of lax, as if his neck were made of jelly.

Franz hadn’t realised he’d been staring until The Handler’s voice broke him out of his stupor. “Amazing, isn’t he?”

“He’s…” Franz searched for the right word. Skilled. Nimble. _Terrifying_. “Efficient” He settled on.

“A spectacular addition to the field agents. I was initially worried about his age, but he is easily surpassing agents in their twenties. I made the right decision taking a chance on him” The Handler pressed the button from earlier, and the room was immediately filled with the sound of Five’s breathless panting. “Well done. I’ll send the guards in. You’re more than welcome to take the evening off and get cleaned up. You deserve it”

“My notebook” Five said almost frantically. The door behind him opened and a guard from earlier walked in, giving the body of the dead agent a nudge with his booted foot. “You promised that if I killed him I would get my notebook”

“For thirty minutes” The Handler reminded. Five nodded, a look of relief on his face as he let the guard lead him from the room. They left Reiner’s body on the floor. He would have looked like he was sleeping, if not for the angle of his head and the smears of blood.

“It’s hard to believe that he’s only been here four months. It seems like he has responded well to the environment here” Franz commented, pulling his eyes away from the body and instead met The Handler’s sharp gaze. She lit another cigarette, drawing from it slowly and letting the smoke drift smoothly from between her lips in wispy tendrils.

“Why do you think I brought you here?” She sighed, idly flicking ash to one side. She tilted her head to one side, the action making a couple of smooth silver curls fall across her face.

Franz sucked in a breath and leaned back against the wall behind him, folding his arms in front of him. He needed to have a few moments to collect his thoughts after what he had just witnessed. “Five possess the ability to manipulate space and time. That makes him a valuable asset as a field agent, as he has just displayed”

“Obviously" The Handler snorted, "You're a clever man Dr Koller, why did I bring you here?”

“I’m going to cut to the chase and guess that you want the department to undertake further modifications on him”

The Handler grinned, shark-like. “Getting warmer. But why you, of all people, Dr Koller? If I wanted the usual modifications, surely I would have gone to any old person in the department. Why did I specifically request your assistance?" 

He wracked his brain, and then realisation hit him like a punch to the gut. “You want me to undertake modifications of a non-skeletal type. You want me specifically, due to my research and interest in neuroanatomy and biopsychology”

“Bingo” The Handler’s smile widened.

Franz felt a wave of icy coldness wash over his body. He had spent years studying the human brain and had lost count of the number of times he’d dissected and researched both animals and humans alike. He had a vague idea as to what The Handler was hinting at, but he had never attempted to do something quite as complicated as altering DNA, especially on a living person.

“Why?” Was all he could muster.

“You saw him out there” The Handler waved a hand towards Reiner’s lifeless body proudly. “He’s intelligent, goal motivated, and efficient. Not to mention his nifty ability to jump through space, a valuable trait for an assassin. But there are a few things that hinder his progress and make him…less than he could be. You saw the way he hesitated at the end. A few tweaks could iron out those creases. Can you just imagine how brilliant he could be”

“You want me to alter his DNA” Franz felt slightly dizzy. This was the most surreal and terrifying conversation that he had ever experienced. DNA modification in research was very different to practice.

“Specifically, I want you to merge his DNA with that of significant serial killers. We keep samples in the archives, they’ve been sitting there, waiting for a moment like this. I've been wanting to do something like this for a while, and well, Five would be a perfect candidate. If things go well, we could consider doing the same to some of our other agents.”

“You have to understand that what you are asking me to do has never been done before” Franz fretted. “There is a strong possibility that this could go wrong. That I could kill him”

“You won’t kill him” The Handler said simply.

“And how do you know that?”

The Handler’s smile widened, and her gaze flickered briefly to Agent Reiner. Franz swallowed thickly at the unsaid threat, his heart thumping so hard it felt like it was going to crack a rib. “I have already had my requests cleared by AJ. I will have my specifications typed up and transferred to your private quarters for you to read this evening – and I’ll even let you choose your surgical assistant. Don’t worry, think of it as an experiment”

“An experiment” Franz echoed, feeling slightly numb.

“I’m glad that you feel the same way” The Handler squeezed his shoulder on the way to the door, the layers of clothing doing little to cushion the sharpness of her nails.

“And Dr Koller. Five is not to know of any of this, and you are not to discuss this with anyone else apart from the assistant you choose. Do you understand?”

Franz nodded. His head was swimming.

* * *

“You can’t be serious” Thomas hissed.

Franz watched as Thomas pinched the bridge of his nose, heaving a sigh that spoke of immense disbelief and confusion.

“You honestly cannot be serious” He repeated.

Franz merely nodded, bringing the glass tumbler up to his lips and taking another sip, the quartz stones within clinking gently at the action. Thomas fell back into the seat opposite him, snatching his own glass off the table between them and downing the liquid like a shot. He was beginning to regret bringing out his vintage Macallan single malt, a birthday gift from Dr Jenkins last year. But then again, he didn’t blame his friend for needing a drink to process the information.

“So let me get this straight” Thomas propped his chin upon his hand. “The Handler wants more modifications on Five?”

“Yes”

“Modifications that involving the altering of his DNA?”

“Yep”

“Modifications that she wants you to carry out?”

“Uh-huh”

“Modifications that include merging his DNA with that of serial killers? And am I the only one that wasn’t aware that they even had samples in the first place?”

"Basically” Franz nodded. And then added. “And are you really surprised? Apparently, they keep samples from major individuals from various timelines. It’s like a smorgasbord of tissue chunks and brain slices in their DNA archives”

Thomas grimaced at the analogy, staring down at his empty glass and looking very much like he wanted to have another drink. Franz took pity on him and topped it up. “Are you out of your mind Franz? You can’t seriously be going along with this?”

“Do I have a choice?” Franz replied with a tired sigh. “She threatened me, said that if I disobeyed her that she would…” He trailed off, face pinched and the unspoken words clear in the silence between them.

“Jesus” Thomas muttered under his breath, rubbing a hand down his face. “You’re in deep shit. Not that I am undermining your research – we all know that you are one of the best in the department, but what if this goes wrong? What if Five ends up a vegetable, huh. Or worse?”

“That’s why I need you”

“What?” Thomas spluttered, staring at him with wide eyes; eyebrows raised towards his hairline comically.

“The Handler wants me to find my own surgical assistant” Franz elaborated.

Thomas continued to stare at him, a variety of emotions crossing his face.

“I am certain that I can achieve what she wants, but I need someone by my side that I can trust, and of all the others in the department – you are the only one that is aware of my research into DNA altering. And weren’t you part of a neuroscience department before you were hired here?”

“I was” Thomas nodded, eyes distant and slightly nostalgic. “Liverpool Royal Infirmary. I was their senior surgeon. God, I would do anything to work back there again”

“I know that it’s a lot of responsibility. And I understand if it’s one that you don’t want to take on” Franz said. He glanced down at the wad of paper on the table in front of him. True to her word, The Handler had delivered the details through the pneumatic tube system to his private quarters, twenty-one pages of her specifications and a list of the samples she wanted him to use. “I trust you, and I want you to be the person by my side when I do this. But I respect your opinion, and if it isn’t something you want to do, I will find someone else. No pressu-”

“I’ll do it”

Franz froze midsentence, looking up at his friend. Thomas was staring down at the specifications from The Handler, face unreadable; he licked his lips nervously and nodded. “I’ll do it. I still think you’re crazy to go through with this. But at least we’ll be in it together”

“Thank you” Franz said genuinely, The weight on his shoulders lifting with relief.

“Don’t thank me yet, we don’t even know if we’ve been successful” Thomas chuckled, shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe he’d agreed to it, and then raising his glass in the space between them. Franz clinked his own against it.

“Cheers to possibly the worst decision of my life” Thomas muttered, although there was a faint smile on his face.

* * *

Mark David Chapman. Charlotte Corday. Luigi Lucheni. Gavrilo Princip. Nathuram Godse. Leon Czolgosz. The names went on. A total of thirty-seven of them; all labelled in their petri dishes, carefully prepared and lined up on the stainless-steel instrument table to his right.

Five was laid upon the operating table like a slab of meat on a butcher’s block, body covered from the neck down in a sterile drape in a shade of garish chartreuse; airways and anaesthesia regulated by the continuous-flow machine he was hooked up to. Franz adjusted the operating microscope into position, while Thomas tightened the skull clamps that held Five’s head study. It was a rather barbaric looking device, but they couldn't afford there to be any movement while he was operating - the results could be disastrous. 

“I’m glad that I made sure to hold off on food before coming here” The Handler commented from where she was perched on the seat at the edge of the operating theatre. They’d managed to persuade her into a surgical gown, which sat oddly over the elaborate dress underneath. Although she’d drawn the line at wearing a sterile cap, however Franz wasn’t too concerned if she stayed away from the operating table. She was idly thrumming her fingertips on the edge of the blackboard beside her, its surface covered in the numerous chalk diagrams and annotations that Franz had prepared prior to the day.

“You don’t have to stay here you know” Dr Jenkins commented, glancing up at the other woman from her clipboard. “This will be a long surgery; we can send a tube to your office once it’s complete”

“I’m fine” The Handler said primly. Franz had a distinct feeling that she didn't trust them to go through with it if she wasn't there to witness it. “Now, let’s have another run-down of all the details”

“For the hundredth time” Thomas mumbled quietly under his breath in irritation, Franz resisted the urge to smile. They’d gone over the details so many times that he’d lost count, he was certain he could recite them in his sleep.

“Agent Five was training with another agent when he was knocked unconscious,” Dr Jenkins said on autopilot. She still sounded rather reluctant, and Franz knew that the woman wasn’t fully on board with what they were undertaking – but there was no room to argue when your life was on the line.

“He was rushed to the emergency room where it was discovered that he’d suffered a fracture to the occipital bone and compression of the spinal cord. We had to operate to relieve the swelling of his brain and implant a metal plate to repair the skull. We then placed him in an induced coma for a week to allow his body time to heal” Dr Jenkins continued.

“Excellent” The Handler grinned, clapping her hands. “Look at you Doctor, putting those deception skills to good use”

Dr Jenkins pursed her lips, looking conflicted.

Franz gazed down at Five, at the numerous tubes entering his airways and the way his chest rose and fell steadily due to the ventilator. He swallowed down his building nerves and instead gave a critical eye over the dashed lines marring the shaved portion of his scalp, located just over the occipital bone. So far, everything had gone relatively easily. A sedative masked in a mug of coffee had reduced Five to a state where he was barely conscious, and the medication administered for the induced coma would be enough to cause confusion when he awoke, enough so that he wouldn’t be able to recall the events days leading up to the event.

“Hey, you okay?” Came a soft voice, and he glanced up to find Thomas next to him. The vivid blueness of his eyes, visible in the thin strip between his surgical cap and face mask, appeared brighter than usual in the harsh overhead lighting. “You seem a bit out of it”

“Just nerves” Franz murmured, pulling on his nitrile gloves in an effort to busy himself. They were shaking slightly with anxiousness, something which wouldn’t be ideal for the complexity of brain surgery. He inhaled deeply, the air pungent with the sharp smell of antiseptic, but thankfully it was enough to help clear his mind.

“Second thoughts?” Thomas questioned quietly, disinfecting the scalpels in the solution of isopropyl alcohol. “It must be one thing to research, and another to actually be performing it on a living person. This is the first time isn’t it?”

“Yes” Franz said. And then added, “I’m fine, really, I am”

“Because seriously, it’s not too late to back out”

“You know, you’re an awful cheerleader”

Thomas pulled on his own nitrile gloves with a snap of rubber on his skin. “You brought me in for a healthy dose of reality. If you wanted unrealistic optimism you should have asked Charlotte”

“Right” Came Dr Jenkins' voice, jerking them out of their hushed conversation. She placed the clipboard aside and pushed her glasses further up her nose. “Let’s get started”

Franz scanned his chalk equations one last time before picking up the cranial drill.


	2. Time to raise hell or walk on by?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the feedback on the last chapter, I really appreciate it and it means a lot to me!
> 
> As the tags say, I really wanted to explore a morally ambiguous and unhinged Five - and explore how aspects of his personality could have changed with modifications to his DNA, and it's definitely within this chapter where this aspect appears. There are also warnings for gore, human experimentation, and general creepiness from The Handler.
> 
> But anyway, I hope you like it!

They were cleaning up the operating theatre when Franz found it, tucked away in the pocket of Five’s suit jacket that they had removed to change him into the surgical gown. He glanced briefly across the room, but Thomas was busy disinfecting the surgical tools in the sink and Dr Jenkins was huddled in the far corner with The Handler, the pair of them discussing something over the clipboard between them.

He discreetly slipped a hand into the pocket and retrieved it, something spherical and hard wrapped in a wrinkled scrap of fabric, and slipped it into his own pocket.

“You okay?” Came Thomas’ voice, and Franz nearly leapt out of his skin at the sudden loudness in the quietness of the room.

“Yes, I’m good” Franz shot him a smile and made a show of folding the jacket, placing it with the rest of the clothes in the cupboard for safekeeping. Five would be in intensive care for a while, a week at the very least, and they could retrieve the clothes once he was safe enough to be moved from the monitoring bay. “You need a hand cleaning them?” Franz asked, gesturing down at the tray of tools beside him.

Thomas shook his head, reaching for a dirty scalpel on the tray. “I’m fine, nearly there anyway”

“Well boys! That certainly was quite a day” The Handler said with a tired sigh, as if she were the one that had performed the operation. “As per our agreement, once Five has been moved from intensive care and it is clear that he is making a recovery, your bonus will be added to your next monthly payment”

She shot them all a brilliant smile and strode towards the door, pausing to glance at them over her shoulder. “Take the evening off, you all certainly deserve it”

* * *

When Franz got back to his private quarters he immediately plucked the item from his pocket. And of all the things Franz was expecting to find when he removed the cloth, it certainly wasn’t a glass eyeball. It was expertly done and extremely realistic, the kind of work that could only be found in private prosthetic laboratories rather than the shoddier work found in cheaper organisations. The iris was a kind of murky brown colour, the whites of the eyes delicately crafted to show the realistic lines of blood vessels.

It's honestly quite unnerving if he was being honest. He rolled it over gently between his fingers and inspected the back. Meritech, it read in bold lettering. Followed by a series of numbers underneath – obviously an identification code.

Franz wrapped it back in the fabric and slipped into his suit pocket for safekeeping. 

* * *

The third day saw a vast improvement with Five’s condition, with Franz arriving at his room to find him propped up in the hospital bed, inspecting the vitals monitor by his bedside. At the sound of his footsteps, the other man glanced in his direction, his eyes were oddly glazed and slightly unfocussed, but he seemed more alert than he had been on the days prior.

“I brought you something to drink, although it’s electrolyte water I’m afraid – not the tastiest of drinks” He said as a greeting, shaking the bottle clutched in his hand. He could see Five staring at something on his chest intensely, mouthing something under his breath, and when he glanced down he could see that it was the ID card clipped to his lab coat lapel. Franz’s eyebrows furrowed when he realised what the words were that Five was mouthing. _Franz Koller._

“Franz?” Five murmured. His voice was slightly raspy from lack of use. “Franz Koller?”

“Yes, that’s me” Franz replied after a moment of pause, pouring some of the electrolyte water into a glass and passing it to him. “You remember me, right? From the Human Anatomy and Physiology Department. I’ve been overseeing your progress here”

Something he said must have registered because there was a flicker of recognition on Five’s face. “Oh. Oh of course. Sorry”

“Don’t apologise” Franz said reassuringly. An operation as big as the one he had just undergone would no doubt have caused some confusion. “How are you feeling?”

Five swallowed thickly. His gaze moved from the glass in his hands and came to rest on the bottom half of the hospital bed. “Odd, my legs are cramping like something crazy”

“Hypokalemia” Franz said, and then elaborated at the confused look on Five’s face. “Low levels of Potassium, a common side effect. Don’t worry, I’ll get the nurses to hook you up to a vitamin drip and that should be sorted in no time”

“And confused” Five added, sipping at the drink and pulling a face. “My head hurts, everything is hazy – it’s like my thoughts are jumbled”

Franz nodded, pulling up a nearby chair and sitting down beside him. “Don’t worry, that’s normal. That confusion should clear after a week, it’s a side effect of the pentobarbital – especially in someone of your age”

Five sighed and gingerly reached his hand up to touch the bandages around his head, gently prodding the thick wad of padding at the back. “Pentobarbital?”

“Sorry, you’ve only just woken up and I’m already unloading the medical jargon on you” Franz laughed. Five just continued to stare at him blankly. “For the induced coma. You’ve been in one for a week. Things a good though, your vitals are normal and with a gentle reintroduction to training your strength should increase back to where it was”

“Why was I placed in an induced coma?” Five questioned, he coughed slightly at the dryness of his throat and took another sip of the water.

Franz swallowed thickly, gaze sliding over to the vitals monitor and watching the steady rise and fall of the line displaying the other man’s heart rate. “You suffered a fracture to the occipital bone and compression of the spinal cord. We had to operate to relieve the swelling of your brain and implant a metal plate to repair the skull. We placed you in an induced coma for a week to allow your body time to heal”

Five hummed thoughtfully, placing the now-empty glass back down on the bedside table. “What happened?”

“An accident while training” Franz licked his dry lips. If there was one thing he hated more than anything else, it was lying. He knew he was bad at it, Thomas had always joked that he was the type of man whose emotions played across his face. But this was his life on the line, and while he wasn’t completely content with the trajectory his life was going – it was certainly preferable to the threats The Handler made.

Five merely blinked at him. He looked exhausted; face etched with the slightest hint of pain. Franz made a mental note to request that his morphine dosage was increased.

“And I have something for you” Franz reached into the pocket of his slacks and retrieved the item within, the glass cold even through the fabric it was wrapped in. “I found it in the pocket of your jacket before you went into surgery. I…I guessed that it was important to you”

Five removed the fabric and held the eyeball between his thumb and index finger, inspecting it intensely. After a few moments, he covered it back up and slipped it into the bedside drawer beside him, concealing it underneath a notepad.

“Does The Handler know?” Five asked and then gestured down at the bedside table with a gentle tilt of his head. “About the eye?”

“No…I…” Franz rubbed a hand down his face, glancing anxiously at the door. “I didn’t tell her. Look, I know that I work for her, but I could tell it was important to you – that you were hiding it from her”

“And that doesn’t make you suspicious?” Five questioned.

“You’ve yet to give me a reason to be. We all have things that we would rather not share”

Five regarded him, seemingly impassively, but Franz could see the minuscule twitch at the corner of his lips. “Well, thank you Franz, I really appreciate it”

“Bitte schon” Franz nodded, reaching over and squeezing the other man’s shoulder.

Five furrowed his eyebrows, blinking with confusion. “Pardon?”

“Bitte schon” Franz repeated slowly, “It means ‘You are welcome’ in German. I would have thought that you’d known that”

“Oh” Five hummed. “I’ve always wanted to learn German. Franz is a German name, isn’t it? Are you from Germany?”

“No, I’m from Austria, near the border of Slovenia…” Franz trailed off, a feeling of worry settling heavily in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the situation, it was clear that Five was experiencing some sort of post-procedure confusion.

His thoughts were interrupted by the bang of the door swinging open, The Handler waltzing in with her usual authoritative air. She was dressed in a dazzling array of luminescent gold and sky blue, glittering rhinestone-studded shoes on her feet. A glimmer of extravagance in the otherwise dreariness of the hospital room. “Oh, you’re up!”

“The racket you make would be enough to wake the dead” Five said with irritation, and Franz couldn’t help but exhale slightly in relief. He was glad that Five was finally showing something other than blank indifference, even if it was annoyance at The Handler’s presence. 

The Handler grinned, perching delicately on the edge of the bed and giving his body a critical once-over. “Oh Five, we do need to work on your manners”

“My manners are just fine. Other people just need to stop being so sensitive”

The Handler smiled coyly to herself and reached out to cup the side of his face in her palm, running a thumb slowly across where the bandages were stretched over his forehead. The action made something uncomfortable settle in the pit of Franz’s stomach, and judging by the flash of nervousness on his face, the same could be said for Five as well.

“You poor thing, such a state you’re in” She cooed softly with a purse of her lips, sliding her fingers back into his snowy hair. “You really do need to be more careful. We can’t be losing our best agent due to a little tumble”

“Don’t treat me like a child” Five hissed, jerking his head back from her.

The Handler smiled, wide and cat-like. She let her hand fall down to the bed, resting it on Five’s left knee, her fingers idly twisting in the bedsheets underneath them. Five shot him a panicked look, and Franz glanced to the side to avoid his gaze, ignoring the twist of guilt as he did so.

“How are the vitals looking?”

“Good” Franz nodded, glad that someone was finally breaking the awkward silence. “I believe that after a few weeks we can gradually reintroduce some cardio, and then after two months we build up to more intensive training”

“Two months” The Handler said, disappointed. “That long?”

“With any trauma to the brain, the slower the better” Franz replied.

“Tempus neminem manet. Do you know what that means?” The Handler spat, and then continued before he had a chance to respond. “Of course you don’t, it’s Latin for ‘Time waits for no one’”

“Abundans cautela non nocet” Franz replied without hesitation.

The Handler narrowed her eyes, challenging. Franz stood his ground and fought against all his instincts not to look away from her sharp gaze. From his position on the bed between them, Five glanced between their faces as if he were watching a tennis match.

“Fine” The Handler said eventually, standing up and smoothing down her dress. She glanced down at Five one last time, before stalking towards door.

Franz had a distinct feeling that wasn’t the end of the argument.

* * *

Three weeks after the operation, the occupants of the lab were jolted out of their thoughts by frantic knocking on the door. Dr Jenkins stumbled to her feet and plunged her keycard into the control panel, wrenching the door open. There was a man on the other side, red in the face and hands on his knees, gulping in frantic breaths.

“Are you okay?” Dr Jenkins asked, grasping at his shoulder.

The man waved her hand aside and gripped the doorframe. His face was glistening with sweat. “Five…seizure…training…”

“Five is having a seizure?” Dr Jenkins frowned.

The man nodded, winded. “Jesus, I’m so unfit…he just went down like a sack of spuds. They’ve rushed him to the operating theatre. He’s not looking so good”

Dr Jenkins turned around to face him but Franz was already on his feet and busying himself with retrieving the file from the cabinet. He could see Thomas out of the corner of his eye, hanging up his lab coat on the hook and dashing out the door.

“Seizure. Do you think he’ll be okay?” Thomas panted as they dashed down the hallway. He elbowed a timeline worker out of the way who squawked in indignation, and Franz sent her an apologetic look over his shoulder.

“Doesn’t sound good” Franz replied, slightly breathlessly, and shouldered his way through the door.

The room was filled with the sounds of the vitals monitor and chatter, and there was a small group of people gathered around a hospital bed; dressed in their sanitary scrubs. He could see The Handler standing off to one side of the bed, sticking out like a sore thumb as per usual. She looked thoroughly pissed off, her arms crossed in front of her and ruby lips curled into a sneer.

“Is he okay?” Franz said as he crossed the room, pulling on the nitrile gloves he’d snagged off the side on the way in.

“Vitals clear” One of the doctors confirmed. “He stopped fitting two minutes ago. However, there is abnormal eye movement and fluctuating consciousness. We believe it to be an acute subdural hematoma. We are preparing a CT scan to confirm the prognosis”

“Jesus” Thomas muttered as he pushed his way through the crowd and came to a stop at Five’s bedside, and Franz was inclined to agree. Five looked…well…dreadful if he was being honest. He was dressed in his black training clothing, which only accentuated the deathly pallor of his skin and the blueness of his lips.

“Torch?” He said, hand outstretched, and he felt someone place one in his palm.

His chest was rising and falling steadily, for which Franz was thankful for, but his eyes were half-closed. And when he gently pulled back the right eyelid and shone his pen torch onto the eye he could see that the pupil was dilated and didn’t contract; the same happening with the other. What made him pause, however, was the darkening bruise and swelling surrounding his left eye.

“What’s this?” He questioned, gesturing down at the offending eye in question. “And why is he in his training clothes?”

“He was training, he got punched” The Handler said matter-of-factly with a roll her eyes.

“He shouldn’t have been training” Franz hissed.

Whatever The Handler was going to say was interrupted by the sound of a door opening and two of the radiographers coming in. “Everything is ready, we’ll get a scan done and go from there” The woman said, unlocking the wheels on the hospital bed. Franz forced out a steady breath and nodded.

“Shall I go in there with him, just to keep an eye on things?” Thomas murmured quietly. “I’m guessing you want to discuss things with The Handler?” 

“Yeah” Franz sighed, running a hand though his hair. “Let me know if his condition changes”

Thomas nodded and glanced worriedly in The Handler’s direction, before following the radiographers and doctors through to the examination room. Franz watched the door swing shut behind them for a few moments, mind buzzing with worry for Five and anger at the woman currently standing in front of him.

“He was meant to be resting” He said eventually, meeting her unconcerned gaze. “I gave strict orders that he was to be cleared by me before he could restart his training”

“No offence Dr Koller, but since when did you take up a position in management?” The Handler bit back, all sharp edges. “And besides, I want him in as good of a condition as quickly as possible”

Franz couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of the statement. “This is The Commission; we have all the time in the world. Do you even know what an acute subdural hematoma is?”

The Handler narrowed her eyes. He knew he was treading on thin ice at this point, but he was positively seething and beyond caring.

“A bleed on the brain. More specifically, one caused by head trauma. They cause a multitude of side effects, one of which includes seizures. They can be fatal”

The Handler had the audacity to pull a cigarette from her pocket and light it. Franz strongly resisted the urge to pluck it out her hand and shove it down her throat.

“You’re not getting the big picture here” The Handler said after a long drag. “I need him to be ready sooner, rather than later. We have a big assignment coming up, and I want Number Five to be the one to undertake it, I want to prove to AJ that all this time and effort wasn’t wasted. He’s been training for the past three days, and it seemed like today he wasn’t on best form and might have been knocked about a bit – hopefully that will teach him a lesson for that not to happen again”

“Three days” Franz exhaled; fingers clenched into fists. “He’s been training for three days without my knowledge? And it isn’t a surprise that he wasn’t on best form, he’s still recovering. You do realise that if this scan comes back positive, it’s highly likely that I will have to operate, again”

“Well think of this as a good thing” The Handler grinned. She seemed completely unbothered about the fact that Five’s life was on the line due to her actions. “I have a couple more suggestions that I would like. You could do them at the same time. What’s the saying? Two birds one stone”

“No” Franz hissed immediately.

The Handler cocked her head to one side, lips pulling down into a displeased frown.

“I’ve done enough” Franz continued. “I’ve messed around with his brain enough and I don’t want to do more – it’s inhumane. He’s not himself. He’s suffering”

“Inhumane” The Handler snorted, flicking ash onto the floor. “Don’t make me laugh. Do you really think that The Commission cares about such a trivial matter? I want further modifications, and if you decline to do them, well…”

Franz could still feel the simmering of anger beneath his skin, but there was something else settling in, the faint hint of nervousness.

“I can’t” He said.

“You will” The Handler quipped back with finality.

Two hours later, Franz found himself under the harsh fluorescent lights of the operating theatre.

He oversaw the craniotomy and removed the blood clot, repairing the injured blood vessels. And while he was there, he undertook a few _tweaks_ to the parietal lobe to heighten Five’s pain tolerance. All under the watchful gaze of The Handler, who surveyed the room from the viewing balcony with a satisfied smugness on her face. 

* * *

“Do you think they’re fucking?” Thomas said one lunch break around a mouthful tuna mayo. From beside him Charlotte spluttered out a mouthful of orange juice and swatted him on the arm.

“Gross, do you have to put it so crudely?”

“Fine” Thomas rolled his eyes. “Do you believe they are having relations?”

“Now you sound like a sexually repressed Victorian” Charlotte mumbled; Thomas shot her a look but otherwise ignored her.

“Who?” Cynthia questioned. “Because if you’re talking about Dr Jenkins and that guy that keeps hanging around the labs. His name is Christopher and I think he’s married; he works in the Training Department”

“No. The Handler and Five” Thomas corrected.

Charlotte audibly gagged and shot him an incredulous look. “You honestly can’t be serious. The Handler. And Five. They’re like chalk and cheese, their personalities are too different. And besides, ew – thanks for the visuals”

“Are they though?” Thomas questioned. “So different, I mean. Ambitious, goal motivated, not to mention they’re both scary as fuck. Come on, I can’t be the only one who has noticed the chemistry between them”

Franz really didn’t want to admit it, but he was glad that he wasn’t the only one that had noticed the tension between them. In the two weeks Five had been kept in intensive care following his brush with death, The Handler always seemed to be lingering around. And now six weeks following that, Five seemed to be spending a considerable amount of time in her office when he wasn’t undertaking their tests in the labs or training. Training which, thankfully, was signed off by him once it was determined that Five was in a fit state, unlike last time.

But then again this was The Handler they were talking about. Franz wasn’t quite sure if what she felt for Five was something akin to actual affection, or if it was more like she was showing off her shiny new toy. However, what he did know was that it was an unhealthy dynamic. Especially seeing that Five had been modified to be more easily controlled. If there was anything happening between them, he doubted that Five was doing it willingly. And as much as it disturbed him, all he could do was turn a blind eye. He knew what happened to those who spoke out. 

“And I mean-” Thomas shoved the last piece of his sandwich in his mouth and swallowed it down. “Think about it. You spend 45 years as the only living person, then this woman shows up and whisks you away, feeds you, clothes you, shows you affection. She certainly seems interested in him. And if you take away the fact that she’s a raging lunatic and an even bigger pain in the arse, she’s actually pretty hot. You know, in a power-hungry dominatrix kind of way”

“You have awful taste in women” Cynthia commented.

“I’m not saying I want to get down on one knee. Just that she’s aesthetically pleasing” Thomas rolled his eyes.

Charlotte grimaced, looking a bit green around the edges. “Okay, so I know Five’s in his fifties and everything. But I still think of him as a little kid. He hasn’t grown up and developed mentally, he doesn’t know what a healthy relationship is. If anything is happening between them, I can bet that The Handler is abusing his naivety. Besides, what about Dolores?”

“Dolores hasn’t got a bottom half if you know wha-”

“Okay!” Charlotte interrupted Thomas pointedly, pushing back her chair with a scrape and giving him a look of annoyance. “I’m going back to work”

“You still have fifteen minutes of lunch left” Franz pointed out.

“I’d much rather work than listen to the disturbing details of whatever the hell is going on in his head” She countered as she pulled on her lab coat. “I think I’ll join you” Cynthia hummed, throwing her rubbish in the bin and following Charlotte out the door.

“They’re eager for work, just what I like to see” Dr Jenkins commented as she appeared in the doorway and crossed the room, pouring herself some coffee from the pot on the side. She sipped at it with a pleased sigh and glanced at them over the rim of her mug. Franz noted that she was holding herself with an odd sense of tenseness. Dr Jenkins was someone who rarely expressed anything more than indifference, so seeing an emotion like that there made Franz feel oddly edgy.

“Actually, it’s handy that you’re in here. I received a message from The Handler wanting us all to meet her at the Training Room 8 for 3pm”

“Training Room 8?” Thomas questioned curiously. “And The Handler? Why us?”

Dr Jenkins deposited her now-empty cup in the sink, chewing her lip in thought. “I believe that it is to do with Five”

* * *

Training Room 8 was painted red.

Or rather, Five was painting it red.

Franz was glad the one-way mirror was separating him and destruction currently unfolding on the other side, as it was splattered and smeared with blood and gore. From beside him, Thomas and Dr Jenkins stared at the agent, ashen faced and wide-eyed. The Handler, on the other hand, looked like she was experiencing some sort of out of body experience.

And Five.

God.

Five was a machine.

He had always been in control of his teleportation before, although the number of special jumps he could undertake before his energy levels depleted were limited. But now, after modifications, he flittered about the room with expert ease and impressive light-footedness. So much so that the room was constantly filled with the short and sharp bursts of sparking blue and odd blur of his body as he moved, too quick to focus upon. It would have been pretty, like fireworks, if not for the numerous bodies littering the floor.

“I do believe that you’ve excelled yourself here, Dr Franz” The Handler said, mouth curled upwards into a smile. Her lipstick a streak of red across her face, not unlike the blood currently smeared across Five’s.

Five dropped into a crouched stance and thrust the blade he was holding upwards, the sharpened metal sliding easily into the underside of the other man’s jaw – the point of it protruding out into the cavity of his mouth. The agent jerked back off the blade, gurgling blood and gripping the deep wound on his neck.

“He’s…” Thomas started. He swallowed thickly, and when his gaze flickered to the side to meet his, Franz could see that his eyes were wide and fearful. “He’s…he’s…god, he’s mad. What have we done?”

“Well you know what they say, genius and madness often go hand in hand” The Handler smiled, eyes locked on Five as he swung an arm out, quick as a whip, the knife severing the femoral artery of the agent in front of him. The man buckled, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, blood gushing down the length of his leg and spilling on the floor.

“Oh yes” The Handler purred, “He will do nicely. AJ will be so proud” 

Franz felt something settle into the deep recesses of his body that he hadn’t felt for quite some time.

The last agent fell back limply, abdomen slashed open and a knife lodged deep into the socket of his left eye. Five stood in the middle of the growing puddle of blood, seemingly unbothered by the clumps of flesh stuck to his clothes and skin.

He gazed heavenwards, head tilted back, and exhaled. His lips widened into a stretched smile that was all teeth and every kind of feral, eyes euphoric. The blood on his hands ran down to his fingertips, dripping off in fat droplets.

 _Scared._ Franz realised. For the first time since he was a child, he felt scared.

* * *

He could tell that The Handler was planning something.

She requested that Five had more modifications. Thankfully, modifications of the usual kind and nothing related to the brain. His other appointments were delayed and Five was bumped up the list – the highest priority. Improvements to the eyes. The implantation of a long-range tracker in his forearm. Adjustments to his hearing. Strengthening of the knee joints.

Franz made note of it all on his file. The list was so long that it spanned numerous pages. Initially, he was excited when Five first showed up, eager to examine him, to inspect him, to understand the man that managed to survive forty-five years in a barren wasteland. But now, he couldn’t help but feel oddly guilty. He’d taken this brilliant and intelligent man and shaped him into something so twisted, a plaything for management.

And while it may have been to The Handler’s order, it was by his hands.

He soon found out the reason behind The Handler’s urgency when Cynthia deposited a newspaper on his workbench one Wednesday morning, tapping the front of it with an expression of glee. Franz pushed the petri dishes aside and picked it up, inspecting the front page. It was The New York Times; dated Friday, March 6th, 1953.

STALIN DIES AFTER 29-YEAR RULE. It read in thick, bold font. Followed by; HIS SUCCESSOR NOT ANNOUNCED; U.S WATCHFUL, EISENHOWER SAYS.

“Holy shit, Stalin’s dead” Charlotte remarked from her position leaning over the desk, reading the newspaper upside down. Thomas perked up from where he was sat, scooting his stool over so he was closer to them.

“Wasn’t that the case that’s been ongoing for years?” Thomas questioned curiously.

Charlotte nodded. “Yeah. They’ve been sending out agent after agent, and each time they’ve been unsuccessful. I must admit I thought that they’d never manage to kill him off”

“It gets even better” Cynthia grinned. “They sent out Five”

“What?” Franz jolted, feeling slightly bewildered.

“Five” Cynthia repeated. “Management sent Five out for the job. Apparently they sent him in at 10am yesterday, and by 3pm on the same day, he’d finished. Literally just went in, did the job, and popped back as if he was nipping out to get some groceries”

“Five killed Stalin” Charlotte said slightly shellshocked. She then laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. “Oh my god, Five killed Stalin”

“I know right” Cynthia remarked. “He’s almost like a changed man. I mean, he was good before, but now he seems freakishly good. All that training must be paying off”

Franz and Thomas exchanged a brief look at her words. It had been difficult, so very difficult _,_ to keep the extent of Five’s modifications quiet. All that Franz knew was that it was himself, Thomas, Dr Jenkins, and certain members of management that were aware of what had been undertaken.

“Good job. When you think about, if it wasn’t for the guidance you gave him, Stalin wouldn’t be dead” Cynthia smiled, patting him on the back. If he was being honest, Franz felt like he was having a lucid dream. He gripped the newspaper tighter and scanned the page again.

“Those petri dishes aren’t going to examine themselves” Dr Jenkin’s piped up, her head poked around the threshold of her office door. Charlotte shot her a sheepish look and sat back down onto her stool. “Congratulations by the way Dr Koller, I just heard the news about Stalin”

“Thanks” Franz murmured, blinking owlishly at the newspaper.

Cynthia gave him one last squeeze on the shoulder before making her way back over to her own bench.

Five killed Stalin.

Holy shit. Five killed Stalin.

* * *

Toivo Antikainen, Finnish politician and Civil War Veteran. Died in a plane crash one overcast day in October 1941, in Arkhangelsk. 

Vasily Bolkhin, Soviet-Russian Major General who died in January 1895, Russia, of a suspected suicide.

Ivar Kreuger, a Swedish engineer and industrialist, whose deceased body was found in his Parish flat March 1932. Yet another suspected suicide.

Robert M.Bond, lieutenant-general of the USAF. Died after ejecting himself from a malfunctioning plane over Nevada, April 1984.

The list was endless. Name after name. Victim after victim. Franz had long since grown accustomed to the methods The Commission utilised to ensure the correct timelines. Guns were the most common; Quick and easy. But tampering of machinery and the faking of suicides were their speciality – deaths that were unknown and held an air of mystery, of intrigue. And by god, did Five do them well.

And honestly, it shouldn’t have been a surprise when he heard that Five had been assigned the John Fitzgerald Kennedy assignment.

* * *

Franz stood staring at the hardwood door for a few minutes. The brass name plaque was highly polished, glinting in the overhead lights of the corridor.

In all his years working at The Commission, he’d never once set foot in any of the management offices – he had to admit that there was a certain mystery about what was on the other side. Some paranoid part of him wondered if he’d been called here to be given the sack, that they were dissatisfied with him.

He swallowed down his building nerves and rapped sharply on the door.

“Come in”

The room wasn’t as large as he thought it would have been, instead, it was a comfortable medium-size painted in a shade of neutral bisque; the walls lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves bowing under the weight of leather-bound volumes. On the far end was a large desk, mahogany and showing the patina of age. The interior was eclectic and unusual – but then again, when the said occupant of the room was a Shubunkin goldfish controlling an artificial body, he hadn't expected anything less.

“Dr Koller” Carmichael greeted. He was sat in a large wingback behind the desk, The Handler seated primly beside him. He gestured down at one of the three chairs across from him. “I don’t believe that we have formally met, it’s a pleasure to meet you”

“Likewise” Franz nodded, pouring himself a glass of water from the jug and slipping into an overly ornate bergère. He glanced up over the rim of the glass at The Handler, but she was sat stiffly and avoiding his gaze; instead scowling at a nearby taxidermy bird posed under a cloche dome.

“We’re just waiting on-” Carmichael perked up when there was a knock on the door, hard and certain. “Come in”

They were two agents, a portly man with his thumbs hooked nonchalantly around the fabric of his suspenders, and a rather stern-looking woman in a tightly hooked corset, clutching the handle of the briefcase in a death grip. There were hundreds of field agents that worked at The Commission, but there was something about them that was vaguely familiar. “Good afternoon, my apologies for calling you off an assignment. I’ve sent another agent to cover it”

The man nodded in understanding, crossing the room and falling back into the chair beside him with a tired sigh; he snagged a cookie off the plate next to the water jug and practically inhaled it. The woman sat to the man’s left, setting the briefcase down by her heeled boots.

“Dr Koller, this is Hazel and Cha-Cha. I’m sure you’ve heard of them” Carmichael continued, gesturing at each in turn with his hand. “Hazel and Cha-Cha, this is Dr Franz Koller. He is a member of our Human Anatomy and Physiology Department and the individual overseeing the progress of Number Five”

Franz’s eyes widened in shock, of course he had heard of them. They were famous across Headquarters, the second most successful agents after Five. He’d never actually met them in person, and if he was being honest they weren’t exactly what he was expecting with regards to appearance. But then again the field agents always looked rather unassuming, management liked it when they blended in with the crowd.

He stuck out a hand towards them. “Nice to finally meet the faces behind the Amsterdam job in ’65”

Hazel’s handshake was as warm and welcoming as his appearance. “Nice to meet the face behind Number Five” He drawled, an easy smile on his face.

Cha-Cha scrutinised him for a few moments before shaking it, and unlike her companions, her handshake was brief and surprisingly strong; her long nails sharp like talons. “Good to meet you”

“Now that we’ve got the introductions out of the way, let’s get down to business. I’m sure you are all wondering why I’ve called you here today” Carmichael said, shuffling the pile of paper in front of him, the fish in his tank swam down to scan the words upon them. “I’m sure that The Handler will be more than happy to break the news”

The Handler stiffened in her seat, giving Carmichael a sideways look of thinly veiled irritation. Eventually, she sighed and crossed her arms in front of her. “We have unfortunately run into an issue with one of our latest assignments”

Carmichael looked at her expectantly. It was rather impressive that a fish could manage such and expression.

“Five has…” The Handler pursed her lips, looking very much like she wanted to be anywhere else in that moment, “He has failed a mission”

Cha-Cha leant forward in her seat; arched eyebrows raised up towards her hairline. “So, the old man finally failed a mission. I fail to see how that has anything to do with us”

“Number Five broke his contract” Carmichael said simply. He retrieved a cigarette from his breast pocket and lit it, holding the end up to the valve at the base of his tank. “We received information this morning from the workers at the Infinite Switchboard that he not only abandoned the JFK job but that he has literally vanished from our timeline”

Franz blinked in shock; he opened his mouth, but no words came out. From beside him, Hazel let out a quiet curse, looking equally as taken aback.

“He has reappeared back in the 2019 timeline” Carmichael continued, tapping ash into the ashtray on his desk.

“The timeline that ended? The apocalypse timeline?” Franz questioned. The Commission wasn’t the best place to work, but from what he had witnessed through the screens of the monitor, he was certain that it was preferable to living back in the apocalypse.

“Yes,” Carmichael confirmed. “All we know is that he has arrived eight days before the apocalypse takes place. But this is where things get messy – he used his powers to travel back and not the briefcase, so tracking his movements is proving to be especially difficult”

Hazel tapped his forearm. “Doesn’t the old timer have a tracker? All field agents have them”

“We have an approximate location as to his whereabouts. We sent Corrections out to deal with the situation, however, let’s just say that…” Carmichael paused, looking mildly pensive, “…the agents were dispatched in an altercation at a Griddy’s Donuts, and the tracker we implanted has not moved since. We believe that he removed it at the scene”

“So you want us to track him down?” Cha-Cha said, face pinched. “You want us to track down a psychotic time traveller who not only took out a whole Corrections team but willingly sliced his arm open to remove a tracker? That sounds more like a death mission than an assignment”

“I called you two here as I feel that you are the only agents capable of tracking him down” Carmichael corrected. “We are sending you to the 2019 timeline with immediate effect, and you are to kill Number Five using any means necessary. Upon completion of the job, you will receive a bonus to your usual pay”

The atmosphere in the room immediately shifted. Franz felt his heart rate increase, a variety of emotions hitting him at once. His hands tightened their grip on the arms of the chair.

“You can’t be serious” The Handler snapped, eyes flashing dangerously. Carmichael simply regarded her coolly, the tail swishing leisurely in the water and producing a couple of air bubbles. “I’ve poured my heart and soul into Five. You have no idea what I have been through to get him where he is, and you’re going to kill him?”

“Number Five has undergone numerous modifications during his time here at the Commission, including altering his abilities to follow orders, correct?”

“Yes but-” The Handler stammered.

“Dr Koller” Carmichael interrupted, turning to him. “Do you feel like there can be anything more done to Number Five to make him more cooperative? Any more modifications to his brain?”

Franz flushed hotly at the sudden attention on him, shifting a little in his seat. He was torn. On one hand he felt a strange connection to Five; he was his first and probably only attempt at DNA alteration. But on the other hand, he knew where Carmichael was coming from. Five was dangerous, he was quick and skilled and easy to anger. If they were unable to successfully ensure his complete loyalty to The Commission, there as always a chance that he could interfere with the timeline. Goodness knows what someone with his power and expertise could do.

“I don’t know” He said eventually, divided. “I’ve never done anything like this before”

“Dr Koller could do something” The Handler said, almost pleadingly. “Look, AJ, you have to understand that Five’s record was excellent before this. We can adjust him, make him more cooperative”

“I had a lot resting on the JFK assignment” Carmichael said after a moment of contemplation. “You have to understand that I cannot be made to look like a fool”

“AJ” The Handler said, voice thin and pleading. “Just give me one last chance”

He tilted his head, the water sloshing gently against the glass.

“One last chance” The Handler repeated.

Carmichael took another drag of his cigarette, the bubbles rising in a flurry from the valve. “Hazel. Cha Cha. If you could come back here in two hours, that would be great. I shall get a briefcase calibrated to 2019 and a motel booked in your name. There’s no need to take any additional equipment, I’ll make sure that all you need is delivered for you to pick up”

The two agents exchanged a look between them as if they weren’t quite sure what to make of the situation. The Handler slumped back in her chair, gazing upwards at the ceiling and muttering under his breath.

“Dr Koller” Franz drew his attention from the others and met the Shubunkin’s glassy eyes. “I have already spoken to Dr Jenkins, however, is there anyone else within the department that was aware of what was undertaken on Number Five?”

“Dr Thomas Andrews was my surgical assistant. I can talk to him if you like, explain what the current situation is”

Carmichael nodded, seemingly pleased. “That would be great, thank you. You have to understand that while your work is impressive, and while your contributions were valued. I do not want another one of my agents to undergo what was completed on Number Five”

“Understood” Franz confirmed.

Carmichael pressed the stub of his cigarette into the ashtray. It’s spluttered out a final burst of an amber glow. “Excellent. I don’t want any of this to be discussed with the other workers until this mess has been rectified. You are all dismissed.”

* * *

Franz arrived at the laboratory less than a week later to find a rather worried looking Thomas and Charlotte huddled together, which was odd in itself, as Thomas was possibly one of the most carefree individuals that Franz had come across. In fact, all of his colleagues were looking on edge, standing stiffly by their workbenches as if they were soldiers awaiting the firing squad. The door leading to the private office of Dr Jenkin’s was closed, but Franz could see the blurs of people moving around behind the frosted glass.

“Franz” Thomas greeted as he made his way over. His lips were pressed into a thin line, face oddly tense. “I’m guessing that you have yet to hear the news”

“I’m usually the last to hear of things” Franz rolled his eyes and buttoned his lab coat. “You know me, I actively try to avoid the gossip that spreads around this place. I’m a firm believer that it weakens the mind”

“Well this certainly isn’t gossip” Thomas replied. He was gripping the workbench so hard that the skin was pulled taut over his knuckles. “Five is back”

Franz froze, gaze flickering back over to the door of Dr Jenkins office. “He’s back?”

Thomas nodded slowly. “Apparently him and The Handler struck up a deal. That he will come back to work for the Commission in exchange for the lives of his siblings”

“Weren’t Hazel and Cha-Cha going to…” Franz lowered his voice. “… _deal_ with the situation?”

He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about the arrival of Five, the man both fascinated him from a scientific viewpoint, but terrified him on a personal level. He knew realistically that he was probably going to be put under his care again, seeing as he was the one that oversaw the modifications. But the fact that his fellow colleagues were acting so apprehensive made him worry that he was missing a key piece of information.

“Seemingly not,” Thomas said. “I queried things with Dr Jenkins but she said she couldn’t share any details. But…Five’s different, he’s…young”

“Young?” Franz questioned.

“Yes he-”

Thomas’ words were cut off by the creak of hinges as Dr Jenkins opened her door, the quiet murmurings of the lab falling into an uncomfortable silence. She was swiftly followed by the imposing figure of The Handler, her signature heels clacking on the floor.

And Five.

Franz resisted pinching himself because the image was so surreal.

Five looked like the same boy he first saw when he arrived in the apocalypse, thirteen years old and dressed in the Umbrella Academy uniform – knee socks and all. The juxtaposition of his appearance in comparison to the man he last saw him as was jarring, but when he looked closely he could definitely see the resemblance. The confident presence, the dark and intelligent eyes, the same sharp jawline, the strong nose and broad cheekbones. But he looked so terribly young with his boyish haircut and the glanglyness that came with a teenager going through puberty.

“As you can see, Number Five has come to the realisation that his presence is appreciated more at The Commission, than it is with his own family” The Handler said, squeezing the boy’s shoulder possessively.

Franz saw the muscles of Five’s jaw tighten in response to his statement, but he otherwise remained silent. “I trust that your department here will patch him up, a few minor burns here and there – simple things to fix, really. And I would like a full health report too, just the standard tests”

“Of course” Dr Jenkins replied swiftly. “Burns?”

Five splayed his hands out towards her, the skin of them pinkened slightly and blistering in areas. “A minor mishap at Meritech” He said simply, looking unphased.

Meritech? The name rang a bell, he was certain it was the same name that was printed on the back of the eyeball he found in the pocket of Five’s suit jacket.

“I’m sure we can sort that out” Dr Jenkins nodded.

“Excellent!” The Handler clapped her hands together, and then slunk off towards the door, wiggling her fingers at Five from over her shoulder. “Drop by Room 18 after your little check-up and we can go over your orientation to the Timeline Department. And then we can catch up over a spot of lunch”

“I can hardly wait” Five replied, voice dripping with sarcasm.

The Handler remained unperturbed at his tone and blew him a kiss, ignoring the roll of his eyes the action received, and vanished out through the door.

“Five, make yourself comfortable in the examination room. Would you like something to drink?”

“Coffee. Black” Five grumbled, and then stalked across the lab without another word and disappeared into the small side room, closing the door behind him. Dr Jenkin’s stared after him for a few moments, a look of apprehension on her face, before breathing in heavily and making her way to the kitchenette.

“Dr Koller, could you update his file? Dr Andrews, could you get some bacitracin ointment?”

Franz nodded and wasted no time in retrieving Five’s file from the filing cabinet, catching Thomas’ eye as the other man vanished off into the side room to retrieve the first aid kit.

Five was sat on the examination bed when he entered, legs dangling off the side and swinging slightly in an uncharacteristically childlike manner. He perked up when Franz entered the room, eyeing the folder tucked under his arm with curiosity.

“It's pretty strange being back here” Five remarked offhandedly.

“You remember?” Franz couldn’t help but comment, setting the file down on the table and opening it up to the page he needed.

“Of course” Five scoffed, staring at a poster on the far wall.

“It’s just, you look…” Franz searched for the right phrase, something that would address the blatant elephant in the room without agitating Five, he knew from experience that the last thing he wanted was to get on his bad side.

“Prepubescent?” Five finished for him, lips quirking up with faint amusement and gaze flicking over to meet his. “In the end, I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum state version of myself that exists across every possible instance of time. I messed up, ended up in my thirteen-year-old body again”

“So, your consciousness remains, but your body has changed, basically?”

“Pretty much. My mind is fifty-eight. My body is thirteen”

_Interesting._

“You haven’t noticed any changes to your mind?” He questioned, hoping his voice was level and not betraying the curiosity he was feeling. DNA altering was relatively unresearched to begin with, yet alone when the recipient was one that could jump through time. Goodness knows what the repercussions could be.

“Why?” Five said, a hint of suspicion sliding into his voice. “Why are you asking?”

“No reason” Franz plastered a reassuring smile on his face, holding his hands up innocently. “I just heard that time travel can cause some unwanted side effects”

“Oh” Five remarked, the tension leaving his body. “I feel okay”

“Okay? You sure?” Franz asked, glancing up from the file.

Five shuffled a little from where he was sat, the sanitary paper covering the bed crinkling at the movement. “Well, If I’m being perfectly honest, I haven’t felt quite right for a while. It’s hard to explain”

“Physically or mentally?” Franz queried curiously.

“Emotionally” Five said pensively, his eyebrows pulled down in thought. And then as if a switch had been clicked, he waved a hand dismissively and leant back, staring at the ceiling and heaving an exhausted sigh. “Don’t worry about it”

“Are you su-”

“Don’t worry about it” Five repeated, rubbing a hand roughly across his face and glancing tiredly at the door. “Do you think she’s forgotten about the coffee? I’m not even exaggerating; I would kill for a decent cup” 

“She’ll come, just give her a few minutes. Can you stand on the scales for me?” Franz said, gesturing towards the corner of the room.

Five slid off the bed and untied his oxfords, kicking them off his feet. And then in a flash of blue, reappeared so he was standing on the scales.

Franz jotted down the number with a frown – a number that was much too low for a growing boy. In fact, he looked like a gust of wind would be enough to knock him sideways with how willowy he was. Nevertheless, he led him over to the height chart. 5’3” or 162 centimetres – only four inches shorter than his height as an adult. Five vanished in a warp of blue and reappeared back on the examination bed, pulling his shoes back on. 

“That file is about me, correct?”

Franz nodded, squinting down at the page as he scribbled down the number. “Yes, it contains all the information about you from the day you first arrived at The Commission”

“It seems like an awfully large file. Are all the agent’s files as thorough?” Five commented, and something in the tone of his voice made Franz glance up at him.

Five had always been slightly intense, slightly unhinged, slightly _off –_ aspects which had only been heightened after the modifications. But there was something quite disturbing about Five in his teenaged body. The juxtaposition of the seemingly innocent appearance and the mature way he spoke made him feel oddly uncomfortable.

“We had a lot to make note of” Franz replied eventually.

Five tilted his head to one side, inspecting him unblinkingly, and Franz could practically hear the metaphorical cogs within his brain whirring in thought. Thankfully the moment was interrupted by the sound of the door opening and Dr Jenkins’ walking in with a mug clutched in her hand. 

“Bad news, we only had instant. I hope that’s okay” She said.

“That’s fine. Thank you” Five took the offered mug and gulped down a mouthful. His face twisted into a grimace, but he otherwise said nothing and swallowed down the rest of the mug as if his life depended on it; completely disregarding the temperature of the beverage. Thomas entered soon after with a first aid kit in one hand and a tube of ointment in the other, placing them down on the bed."One ointment and one first aid kit. Okay then, hand's out - we'll get you patched up in no time"

"No need" Five plucked the tube up and flicked the cap open, smearing some of the ointment onto his palm. “No offence, but I can do this myself. Do you have dressings?”

Thomas sighed as he retrieved a box from the first aid kit. Five didn’t hesitate in grabbing one and peeling the backing off, pressing it down over a bloody graze on his left knee.

“The Handler wants you at Room 18 after this, do you know where it is?” Dr Jenkin’s questioned as she watched the whole scene unfold with a befuddled expression. It seemed like Franz wasn't the only one who was slightly bewildered by Five's sudden reappearance. 

“Not really. I never went to the Timeline Department while I was here last time, I simply got requests from them” Five said, busy putting another dressing on the palm of his right hand where the worst of the burns were. “No worries though, I’m sure I can find it”

“It’s over the other side of the building, you’ll get lost trying to find it yourself” Dr Jenkin’s frowned.

“Actually. I needed to send some documentation over to the Timeline Department and was going to do it through pneumatic tube" Thomas interrupted, "But I can just walk it down there with you, take you where you need to be so you don’t get lost” 

Five’s eyebrows drew together in deep concentration, scrutinising the man with a thoughtful expression. His eyes were narrowed in such a way that they always did whenever he was thinking about something deeply. After a few moments, he nodded, sending him an appreciative smile. “That would be welcome, thank you”

* * *

Having Five back was rather…anticlimactic if he was being honest. In fact, after their initial reintroduction at the start of his shift, he had hardly seen him. Instead, The Handler whisked him away to goodness knows where. 

Of course, he should have realised that things were never going to be easy. 

* * *

Franz was halfway through wiping down his workbench when the room was punctuated by the sound of space being torn and the smell of ozone. Charlotte cursed when she dropped a beaker in the sink with shock, frowning when it shattered.

“Number Five” Dr Jenkins piped up; a hand pressed over her chest. “Please knock at the door when entering the lab”

“Sorry” Five said, sounding remarkably unapologetic, from where he was inspecting a bottle of colourless liquid. He placed it back on the shelf and looked around the lab, gaze scanning over the other startled individuals impassively. That was something Franz had noticed about him; that he was always inspecting. He got a distinct impression that his brain was never quiet.

“Not that you aren’t welcome here, but is there anything I can help you with?” Dr Jenkins asked.

“Not particularly” Five commented. He opened and cupboard and peered inside, and then shut it with a frown. Dr Jenkins ran a hand through her hair with frustration; the woman had never liked people meddling with her carefully organised space. There was a brief flash of blue and Five reappeared at the other side of the room in front of the filing cabinet, giving the locked door a tug to no avail. Franz sighed and walked over, mouthing an _“I’ll deal with this”_ to Dr Jenkins on the way past.

“You are aware that it’s locked, right?” Franz said, leaning against the cabinet and folding his arms in front of him.

“I’m looking for something” Five said shortly, narrowing his eyes. Franz doubted that he would ever get used to the fact that the child in front of him had the consciousness of the man before. Franz felt like a giant standing next to him, practically towering over his short frame.

“Actually, while you’re here Dr Koller, I wanted to discuss a few things with you” He continued.

“Like I said when we first met, just call me Franz. Dr Koller reminds me of my father”

Five smiled impishly, the action making the dimple on his cheek more pronounced. He looked sweet, the kind of boy that would walk old people across roads and say their pleases and thank yous. But there something about him around that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

 _It's the eyes,_ he thought, _No child should have eyes as harrowed as that._

“Franz” He corrected, hooking his thumbs nonchalantly into the pockets of his shorts. “I specifically want to ask you a few questions regarding the modifications that were undertaken on me”

“I’m afraid that is classified information, information that is only known by those in the department” Franz replied.

Five’s eyes flitted briefly over his shoulder, and Franz followed his gaze to find him looking at Thomas. The other man was looking back, his face clouded into an expression Franz couldn’t quite decipher, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. But before he could comment on it, Five’s attention was back on him.

“Information that is stored in my personal file that you had this morning, correct?” Five said, interrupting his thoughts.

Franz pulled his gaze away fro Thomas with a slight frown. “I’m afraid that you can’t have your file if that’s what you are hinting at”

Five’s piercing eyes seemed to be dissecting him alive. With him being as small as he was, it was easy to forget that dealing with him was like playing with a stick of dynamite. A very short-tempered and scheming stick of dynamite.

“I don’t think you understand that what I am asking is not a request” He laughed humourlessly. “I know they weren’t standard modifications. I know my mind better than anyone else, spending so long alone can make you acutely aware of both your strengths and limitations. I know that you did something to alter my consciousness. I can feel it”

Franz swallowed nervously, glad that their conversation was remaining at a relatively quiet level and that they were the other side of the room from the workbenches. He could see eyes on him, and when he glanced to the side he caught sight of Dr Jenkins watching them curiously, no doubt wondering what they were talking about. “You are mistaken. We did minor modifications on your eyes – just to improve your eyesight. And rectified the old break to your leg, as well as some strengthening to the joints.”

Five leant back against the cabinet, crossing his legs at his socked ankles. “Sometimes, I just get these… _urges_. Silly things, really. The other day Luther was eating noisily, nothing extreme, just chewing with his mouth open and scraping his cutlery against the plate. But it was all I could focus on, like my mind just went blank. And all I could think about was how good it would feel to lodge that knife in his neck. And while I know that I'm good, I've noticed that my combat capabilities seem to have improved quite a bit compared to when I first arrived here. - more than what I would expect with simple training ”

He glanced down at his hands, small and unblemished, with a look of disgust on his face. It seemed like being in his younger body was affecting him greatly. “When I was here, back in my original body. I was placed in an induced coma after suffering major head injuries following a training session. My thoughts were jumbled, I was confused for quite a while after. Do you remember?”

“I do. You suffered a fracture to the occipital bone and compression of the spinal cord. You were placed in an induced coma to allow your body to heal” Franz said tensely; the line practically ingrained in his brain.

Five glanced up at him from under his fringe. The blurs of darkness under his eyes were amplified under the fluorescent lights above, sleeplessness and stress written across his face like a book. He wondered what the man had gone through between breaking his contract and arriving back at the Commission. He looked, well, frankly awful if he was being honest. Like he needed a decent meal and some bed rest.

“Was it, though?” Five questioned; curiosity evident in his voice.

“Would I lie to you?” Franz rebutted, biting the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. He could feel the intense gaze of the other man on his face, assessing him for the slightest twitch of a muscle.

“Ever since then, I feel as though my mind is different” Five commented.

“That’s to be expected, you suffered major head trauma that would not be without consequences” Franz replied.

“I am certain that my original body had a scar measuring approximately 4cm in length at the occipital protuberance, I could feel it. I have reason to believe that this is a surgical scar relating to the modifications that I received at your hands”

“Yes, it was a surgical scar. And yes, it was by my hands” Franz said. “But as I already said, it was from the surgery received after your accident and nothing more”

"Was I a test subject?" Five narrowed his eyes, "Were you planning on watching me, seeing how I would progress? And if it was successful, were you going to do the same to other agents?" 

"I don't know what you're talking about"

Five just continued to look at him, eyebrows furrowed.

“I did not undertake any modifications to your brain” Franz said sternly. “Now, Dr Jenkins gets very particular about visitors to the lab. I think it would be best if you made your way back to the Timeline Department”

“Mister Five?” Sang a voice, muffled through the door. There was the sound of a card being slotted into the lock, and then the beep of the control panel. The Handler peered around the door, a smile on her face.

“Well, there you are” She grinned, waving a hand lazily in Dr Jenkins direction. “Don’t mind me, Doctor, just coming to collect some lost property”

Five groaned audibly, eyes leaving Franz to give the woman a look of thinly veiled annoyance. “What do you want?”

The handler strode up towards him, wagging her finger. “Now now Five, there’s no need to be so tetchy”

“What do you want?” Five repeated, looking unbothered as the woman reached across the space between them to brush her fingers over his cheek.

“A little birdie told me that you vanished in the middle of work. I wondered where you went. I’ve been looking for you everywhere” She grinned, pinching the flesh of his cheek between her fingers.

“I finished my files. It’s not my fault you didn’t give me enough work to get me through the day” Five merely stated, swatting her hand off him. “I went for a walk and thought that I would refamiliarise myself with the building” 

“A walk that included the labs? Surely you are already familiar with them” The Handler cocked her head to one side and tucked a few curls behind an ear.

“Just wanted to be extra familiar” Five smiled; that same unnerving smile Franz first saw when he was in his older body and had just murdered a room of professional agents. It made him shiver. The one where it was a touch too wide and toothy. 

“Well. Now that you’re familiar – how about we go and grab some food?”

“Not hungry” Five grumbled, and then blushing slightly when his stomach growled in protest.

“Great! Indian it is! I haven’t had an Aloo Gobi since the ’70s” The Handler clapped her hands together, and then glanced to the side and seemed to realise for the first time that he was next to them. “Oh, Dr Koller – I almost did see you there. Did you want to join us for lunch? I’m sure I can persuade Dr Jenkins to agree”

“I’m going to have to politely decline. I’ve got some work that I would like to catch up on” He said.

“What a shame, oh well, perhaps another day. Come along now Five” The Handler grasped Five tightly by the shoulder and steered him back past his colleagues and towards the door. She glanced briefly over her shoulder on the way out, giving him a look he couldn't quite decipher. 

Franz straightened his lab coat and sighed, crossing the room and slipping back onto his stool. Thomas appeared lost in thought, eyes locked on the door the two had just vanished through.

“You okay Thomas?”

“What?” Thomas jolted, a sheepish look crossing his face. He scratched his chin through his stubble. “Sorry. Yeah, I’m good. Just wondering why Five was here. Did he say anything?”

“No. He was just having a nosy about. You know him, always wanting to know what’s going on” Franz lied.

“Oh” Thomas exhaled.

* * *

After the rather eventful start to the day, he was hoping that the rest of it would go smoothly. Of course, life seemed to have something against him.

Franz was locking the control panel and Thomas was finishing the dregs of his thermos when they were approached by Agent Tucker, dressed in his usual dark suit with a briefcase in his hand. He gave them a friendly wave as he approached. “Hey, you have a minute?”

“Tucker” Franz greeted with a smile “Of course, what can we help you with?”

“I’m afraid that I’ve been having some trouble with my eyes” Tucker sighed. “I noticed it a few weeks back, but it’s only got worse after my last assignment”

“They’re not looking so good” Thomas agreed with a sympathetic wince. “I think it’s just a spell of keratoconjunctivitis sicca, or dry eye. I think we’ve got some drops in the cabinet; we could get you some if you want?”

“Really? That would be great” Tucker perked up.

Franz glanced down at his watch. 6:35pm. It had been a long day, and if he was being honest, all he wanted to do was get back to his private quarters and fix himself up a cup of tea. Nevertheless, he unlocked the door to the lab with a sigh and gestured inside. “Come on in, we’ll get you fixed up”

“Cheers. I’ve got an assignment in Germany tomorrow and I really need to be on top form” Tucker said, depositing his briefcase on a nearby workbench and following Thomas across the labs and into the side room. Franz locked the door behind them and grabbed a prescription form off the side.

“Germany eh?” He said. “What task have you got this time?”

“Some guy called Alfred Herrhausen. A banker or something” Tucker yawned, sliding into the chair and leaning on the table. Franz nodded to show he was listening and sat opposite him, retrieving a pen from his pocket and started filling out the form.

Thomas groaned from where he was leaning against the wall, staring down into his empty thermos with tired eyes. “Jesus, I think I’m going to need another cup if I’m going to stay upright. You guys want one too?”

“Yes please, milk and one sugar for me” Franz nodded, sending him an appreciative smile.

Tucker looked thoughtful for a few moments, and then declined. “I’m good thanks, I try not to have caffeine after four”

“You sure? I’ve been told that I make a mean cup of joe” Thomas winked.

“He does actually” Franz piped up.

“Oh what the hell, count me in. Just black please” Tucker said, and Thomas threw them a thumbs up before disappearing back into the main room.

“So you think it’s dry eye?” Tucker questioned, peering across the table at the paperwork. “Nothing serious or anything?”

“Don’t worry, It’s quite common. Your last assignment was in Agadez, wasn’t it? The weather there certainly wouldn’t have helped” Franz commented, unlocking the cabinet and fishing out one of the medicated eye drops from the top shelf.

“So hot” Tucker complained, and then launched into a rather long-winded and convoluted recapitulation of his latest mission. Franz was only half listening if he was being honest, nodding at where he deemed appropriate and subtly eyeing his watch.

“Hey Franz, do you know what’s up with the door?” Thomas piped up as he walked into the room, three mugs clutched precariously in his hands which he placed on the table in front of them. Some of the coffee sloshing over the rim and onto the table and he wiped it up with his sleeve

Tucker brought the mug up to his lips, sipping at his coffee with a pleased sigh. "Thanks, Franz wasn't lying, you do make a decent cup. What's the secret?" 

Thomas smiled, giving him a pleased nod. "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you". Tucker snorted and rolled his eyes.

"What's up with the control panel?" Franz questioned, and Thomas glanced back at him. “Oh yeah, right. The emergency light is on. Do you think the control panel is playing up again?”

“Again?” Franz muttered. “They need to invest in this department. That’s the fourth time they’ve had to fix it in the last month. I’ll check it out”

The control panel was indeed flashing red, and with a sigh, he unclipped the cover to reveal the wiring underneath. Given that they were technically in the most advanced wing of the organisation, the technology was rather antiquated – management were loathed to spend excess money if they could help it. He fiddled around with the wiring until something caught his eye, and Franz paused, twisting his fingers deeper into the tangle of wires in order to reach it. With a frown he pried the offending cable out from the panel, inspecting the severed end of it. Knowing the age of the technology it had probably worn thin. Only it didn’t look worn, it looked…cut.

“I’m so sorry” Came Thomas’ voice.

He gasped as something connected hard the back of his head, pain radiating across his skull, eyes smarting. He tried to drag himself up from the floor, hands scrabbling over the surface of the wall for purchase. But he was struck again around the side of the head, and he fell forward unceremoniously onto the floor.

“Tucker!” He shouted, his voice sounded like it was underwater from the ringing in his head, and he could feel something wet trickle down the nape of his neck.

“He can’t hear you”

Franz squirmed forward on the tiled floor and squinted through the blurry haze of his vision to see the form of Tucker slumped over the desk, coffee from his upturned mug dripping off the edge and collecting in a small puddle on the floor. He used the last of his energy to try and haul himself to his feet, but there was another hard blow to his lower left leg, and he felt something snap under the force. He sobbed out a cry and collapsed, trying not the throw up at the pain.

The sound of his frenzied panting was interrupted by the sudden blaring of the overhead alarm, plunging the room into a repeated flashing of the red emergency light in the centre of the ceiling. Aside from the occasional test they did once in a blue moon, Franz had never once known for the Headquarters alarm to go off, they were only reserved for major incidents or intruder situations.

“Finally” Thomas remarked indifferently from where he was standing over him. “I was starting to worry that something had gone wrong on his end”

“Thomas?” He whimpered.

“I’m so sorry” Thomas repeated, lowering the weapon from where he had it poised above his head.

Franz realised that it was the stand for an IV drip, no wonder his head hurt so much. Thomas looked faintly conflicted, but it was overridden by the steely determination in his eyes. He glanced down at Franz’s leg with a faint wince, and then let the stand fall from his hands with a clatter to the floor.

The pain from his shin and skull were competing for competition, and it felt like his whole body was on fire. He numbly touched the back of his head, and when he pulled his hand away, his fingers were slick with blood. “Was the control panel your doing?”

Thomas’ gaze flickered briefly from his limp form to the panel. “I was simply following orders to stop you from leaving the room”

The alarms were still blaring, the room flashing from dark to red in an endless cycle. In the light, Thomas’ usually friendly face looked oddly sinister. “Please, we need to leave. Whatever this is, we can sort it out. Let's just get out of here”

“I'm afraid we can't do that” Thomas shrugged, glancing at the clock on the wall.

The room flashed blue and the sound of the alarm was interrupted by the familiar woosh of space being bent. Five appeared, looking decidedly dishevelled with his wrinkled uniform and mussed hair. He had a hand clamped over his right bicep, a dribble of blood running from between his fingers. Franz watched as he glanced around the room, his stern gaze coming to rest on him with a cold expression. “Good. You kept up your end of the bargain”

“You’re late” Thomas remarked, lips pursed with displeasure.

“I ran into a few issues back at the office. I wasn’t expecting The Handler to fight back as much as she did” Five removed his hand from his arm with a wince. The sleeve of his blazer was torn and stained with blood – it looked like he’d been grazed by a bullet.

“Is she dead?”

“I blew her up with her own grenade. I’ll be impressed if she managed to survive that. Do you have the briefcase?”

Thomas jerked his head in the direction of where Tucker’s briefcase sat innocently on top of the workbench. Five’s face lit up and his crossed the room to inspect it, fiddling with the combination on top – the briefcase thrumming faintly in response.

“So, this is your doing?” Franz spat, he tried to shift up onto his knees, but the pain of his leg flared hotly in response, and he fell back down with a muffled whimper. Instead, he managed to roll over so he was at least sat on the floor, legs splayed in front of him. Five cocked his head in his direction, his eyes reflecting red in the light “You know Franz, I really hope that is a rhetorical question – otherwise you are more stupid than I thought”

“I don’t understand” He stammered out. “What is the purpose of this?”

“To get back” Five answered as if it were obvious. “That has been my plan all along, did you really think I was going to spend the rest of my life here, in this shithole? It was merely to bide my time. Strike up a deal with The Handler, get what I need to stop the apocalypse, and get back to my family to save them”

“But…why Thomas?”

Five sighed and pressed his lips together tensely. “Because you trust him. And I needed someone who had access to the laboratory. I wanted the control panel to be destroyed from the inside out, with you inside”

He twisted something on the top of the briefcases, which started vibrating. “It was easy, really. In exchange for you to be restrained and for me to gain access to my file. I offered Thomas here a briefcase and the promise of escaping to any place of his choosing”

“Can we hurry up?” Thomas mumbled, looking antsy. “Surely the guards will be here soon”

Five rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored him. “The issue was that I needed a briefcase in the first place, and The Handler was keeping tabs on me to ensure that I didn’t gain access to one. So, I bribed Tucker a sizeable sum to request some assistance for you after laboratory hours, bringing his briefcase. And you, being the person that you are, were too kind to turn him down”

“But he’s dead” Franz said, and then blinked in realisation. “You were playing him, you were never going to give him the money”

Five grinned, wide and shark-like. His teeth were stained with blood. “I just needed a briefcase here in this room at a specific time. He didn’t have to know that he was merely a pawn to achieve that step. It was easy. Strychnine tastes bitter, but the flavour can be masked by an equally bitter drink. I’m a firm believer that coffee can solve a variety of problems”

Franz looked towards Thomas who glanced away guiltily. Five hauled the briefcase off the workbench with a grunt and turned to Thomas, who eyed it with a look of complete and utter glee. “There you go, one briefcase set to 1991 Liverpool. It was a pleasure working with you”

“Can you double-check it, just to make sure?” Thomas questioned; hand outstretched.

Five’s eyebrows raised minutely, his head tilting slightly to one side. A couple of strands of blood-matted hair fell across his eyes. “Do you not trust me?”

He paused, clearly thinking about what to say to the question. His gaze flickered briefly towards him, and Franz was struck by the amount of pain in them. Thomas sighed and dragged a hand down his face. “Of course I trust you” He nodded.

Five smiled sweetly and closed the distance between them, offering the briefcase towards him, and Thomas reached out to grasp the handle.

“Funny” Five muttered, that sweet smile settling into something more baleful. “Surely you know better than to trust me”

Initially, Franz couldn’t comprehend what happened, for it occurred in such a short span of time. One second Thomas and Five were standing face-to-face, the briefcase bridged between their hands. And the next, the air was permeated by the sharp and penetrating sound of a gunshot. Thomas gasped out thick gurgling noise, his body slumping backwards with a spray of liquid. It fell only centimetres from Franz’s feet, his pained eyes staring up at the ceiling and mouth lax, a small stream of blood running from his lips and pooling on the tiled floor.

Blankly. Numbly. Franz gazed at the front of Thomas’s labcoat were there was a growing spread of red surrounding a bullet hole on his chest.

“Shame” Five murmured, placing the briefcase down beside his feet. He bent down and pressed the muzzle of the gun into the flesh of Thomas’ cheek. The other man spluttered weakly in protest, spraying droplets of blood into the air; his fingers twitching. Five pulled the trigger, the bullet tearing through the soft tissue of his face and emerging from his temple with the crunch of bone. Thomas’ body convulsed for a couple of seconds and then fell back limply on the tiled floor.

“You’re a monster” Franz trembled, his eyes struggling to make out the features of his friend’s face through the mess of torn flesh and mangled gristle. “He didn’t deserve that, you tainted him. I thought you were a good person – a decent person”

“Oh Franz, there’s no such thing as good guys or bad guys, there’s just people” Five grinned, eyes sparkling with a hint of disturbing pleasure. He slipped the gun back into the waistband of his shorts, concealed underneath his blazer, before kneeling down beside him. He unclipped the keychain from Franz’ belt, thumbing through the keys dangling from it.

“Why” Franz croaked. The was darkness starting to creep into the edges of his vision. “Why kill Thomas, of all people?”

“I needed the briefcase” Five said simply.

“I don’t-” Franz coughed, tasting blood, “I don’t understand”

“My ultimate goal here was to get back to my family, and in order to do that, I needed a briefcase. And while I was here, I thought I might as well retrieve my file. Thomas, a kind person, but gullible. He knew that I was planning on killing Tucker after he brought the briefcase to the room, but he never once considered that he himself was yet another pawn”

Five paused to remove his tie, wrapping it securely around his bicep and tying it off tightly to stem the flow of blood.

“It was quite simple really. After Thomas was so kind as to walk me over to the Timeline Department, we had a little chat. I learnt that he was quite desperate to get home, so very desperate. So bribed him with the hope of freedom in order for his assistance with my plan. I needed him to destroy the control panel and incapacitate you. And well, once that was complete, he wasn’t needed. I intended for that briefcase to be mine from the start”

“Why not keep your end of the deal, then? Thomas deserved that much. Couldn’t you just have time travelled back home without the briefcase and given it to him?”

“ _Time travelled back home without a briefcase_ ” Five parroted mockingly, laughing humourlessly. “Time travel’s a crapshoot. I went into the ice and never acorn-ed. I hate to admit it, but using a briefcase is much easier. Lest I turn myself into a toddler next time. Being a teenager is bad enough. And besides, I was going to kill the two of you anyway”

“Kill me, why would you kill me?” Franz muttered. The thrumming of his head was now pulsing painfully with the alarm. He definitely had one hell of a concussion, although he was certain that was the least of his problems at the moment.

“I can’t believe you would ask such an idiotic question. I planned to dispose of both you and Thomas, the only individuals in this hellhole of an organisation capable of what I believe you did to me” Five blinked across the room and unlocked the filing cabinet, and Franz’s blood ran cold.

“The Handler blackmailed me” Franz said desperately. He sounded pathetic to his own ears, weak and pleading, but he didn’t care. “She said that she would kill me if I didn’t obey her orders. Surely you understand. People just go missing if they disobey orders”

Five flicked through the file with a dangerous and pinched expression. Eventually, he closed it with a sense of finality and tucked it under his arm. “You really have been quite busy, haven’t you Dr Koller. DNA altering is a rather risky business. At least my suspicions were confirmed correct – I really don’t appreciate the fact you lied to me”

“Please. I didn’t have a choice” Franz begged.

“Everyone has a choice” Five blinked back over and picked up the briefcase. “What you did to me, you are never going to do to another person. I don’t even know what I’m going to do to undo the mess you’ve caused. I suppose that due to your careful notetaking, at least now I know what aspects you interfered with”

Franz tried to push himself to his feet to no avail. He could hear the distant sound of heavy footsteps and shouting coming from the guards that were quickly approaching. Five must have heard them too, as he glanced at the door with a tired sigh. He shoved a hand into his pocket and retrieved something compact and circular that fit easily into the palm of his hand, roughly the size of a baseball. “Well. As The Handler liked to say, Que Sera Sera” 

“Please don-”

His words were cut off by Five pulling the pin out of the grenade with his teeth, rolling it across the floor so it came to rest between his leg and Thomas’ mangled corpse.

And the last thing he saw before his body was ripped apart was the flash of a briefcase.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come follow me on Tumblr!](https://fudgemutt.tumblr.com/)


End file.
